


Be One Traveler

by harriet_vane



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M, woke up in an alternate universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harriet_vane/pseuds/harriet_vane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If skaters were to spend time with their competitors, pushing competitive feelings aside, they would probably find that they actually have a lot in common. As much as they like to tell the media that they‘re complete opposites, underneath their exteriors Johnny and Evan are more alike than different." -- Jennifer Kirk, Why Skaters Aren't Friends</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be One Traveler

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't post this fic anywhere else, please don't distribute it anywhere, please don't put it on goodreads, and really really please don't link it to anyone being written about here. Thanks!

  
Evan woke up and immediately knew something was wrong.

His bed felt wrong, for one thing; Evan liked a hard mattress, and this was squishy. For another the sun was slanting across his face, and he'd arranged his bed so it was pitch black until his alarm clock went off. For a third, there was someone else in the bed with him, and he was absolutely sure Nastia had flown home three days ago.

Evan rolled over, pretending to be asleep so he could check out who he'd gone to bed with. He didn't remember going to a club, he didn't remember being trashed, but he also definitely didn't remember hooking up, so... it had to be one or the other. Dark hair splashed across the other pillow and someone shorter than Evan curled up under the blankets. Nice body, from what Evan could see, though that wasn't much.

The other person yawned suddenly and rolled over and Evan found himself nose to nose with Johnny Weir.

 _What the fuck?_ Evan's brain screamed, and then it tried to panic and get angry and freak out all at the same time and he ended up frozen, wide-eyed, staring at Johnny.

Johnny had really green eyes and super long lashes. Evan had never noticed that before, and oh god he never wanted to notice that again. How drunk had he _been_? Holy shit, he hadn't just gotten blitzed, he must have given himself alcohol poisoning and this was a medically-induced hallucination in the hospital. "Hey," Johnny said. His voice was a little scratchy and deep, but he didn't looked panicked. Why wasn't Johnny panicked? "Did I miss the alarm?"

Had they set an alarm? Jesus, had they _planned_ this? Evan tried to imagine how he'd been drunk enough to go home with Johnny, but somehow logical enough to set an alarm. "No," he said. His voice was tight and squeaky.

"Good," Johnny said. "Mmmm, I don't want to get up yet." He snuggled forward, pressing himself up against Evan from chest to knees and wrapping his arm around Evan's shoulder, tucking his head under Evan's chin.

Evan was wearing boxers.

Johnny wasn't.

"What the _fuck_?" Evan yelped, shoving Johnny back and scrambling out of bed. His heart was hammering in his chest, and he felt a little ill. "Are you _insane_?"

Johnny sat up, tilting his head quizzically. His hair was sticking up, and that stupid silver necklace thing he wore glittered against his chest in the early morning sun. He looked like he'd had a good time last night. Another jolt of panic shot through Evan and he tried surreptitiously to figure out if his ass hurt. No, right? Johnny looked like he'd gotten fucked, not like he'd been fucking. Right? Didn't he?

"I know you have practice," Johnny said, frowning a little. "We have time, though. Frank won't freak out like Galina does. You don't have to panic." He held his hand out coaxingly. "Come back to bed, I won't tell Frank you were wasting energy."

There was a teasing, knowing smile on Johnny's face that made Evan feel cold and then hot all over. In a clinical kind of way Evan was aware that Johnny was an attractive guy, if you were into boys who looked like girls, but Evan was 100 percent straight. Or like, 85 percent straight, if you included that unfortunate week at champs camp he was never talking about again. But he was definitely not comfortable having Johnny fucking Weir look at him like that. All... sexy.

"I am not doing _that_ with _you_ ," Evan managed. His voice sounded completely choked.

Johnny should have looked hurt. He should have gotten his prickly, bitchy face on and thrown Evan out of his apartment. Evan had fought with Johnny enough times to know that all it took was a nasty comment to get his back completely up, and then he'd melt down.

Instead Johnny shrugged and flopped back against the pillows. "Fine," he said. "Spoil sport. Go see if Frank will suck your dick good morning."

Evan was struck flat-footed by that image. On the one hand -- gross! Frank's mouth! On the other hand, Johnny's mouth. "He--" Evan croaked.

"He doesn't know about biting the inside of your thigh, either," said Johnny. He was pouting. Why in hell was he _pouting_? "Whatever, I can always use more beauty sleep. Galina doesn't expect _me_ this early." He rolled over with big, deliberate movements and pulled the blankets over his head.

There were about a million things Evan wanted to say. Like, _Where are my clothes?_ and _Where are YOUR clothes?_ and _HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED?_ But somehow what came blurting out of his mouth was, "Seriously? Needing beauty sleep? _You_?"

Johnny pushed the blankets back and beamed at him. His hair was all messed up, and his eyes were still a little crinkly with sleep. "Aww," Johnny cooed. "You're so sweet. I take it back; you can have a blow job if you want."

Evan wanted. For just a second his lizard brain overruled his regular old thinking brain, and the little tiny part of him that had always kind of admired Johnny's mouth shrieked, _Yes, please!_ That was clearly the part of his brain that had gotten smashed the night before and dropped him into this mess to begin with. "No!" Evan almost shrieked. "Where are my jeans, where are my clothes, oh, my god--"

"Holy shit, relax," Johnny said, rolling his eyes. "Your clothes are right where they always are, in the drawers, and Frank doesn't expect you for, like, forty-five minutes." He pushed the blankets aside and stood up, stretching and yawning.

He was really naked.

He was really, _really_ naked. It was like the whole room was suddenly full of naked Johnny Weir. Evan didn't know where to look, so he stared really hard at the ceiling. _Totally smooth, bro_ , he told himself sarcastically.

"You're acting weird," Johnny said a little flatly. "I'm going to shower. Wait for me, okay? They'll yell less if we're both late."

"What?" Evan asked blankly, but Johnny had already wandered -- naked! -- into the bathroom and shut the door. Evan was definitely not watching his ass as he walked by, either.

Why would Evan have clothes at Johnny Weir's apartment? Johnny was just fucking with him, clearly; he knew Evan was hung over, and he was taking advantage or something. Evan wobbled over to the dresser -- his knees weren't feeling entirely attached to his legs -- and pulled open a drawer at random. Inside was a collection of button-up shirts that definitely _looked_ like his, although he'd never ironed his clothes with such crisp creases. He pulled one out and held it up against his chest. It looked like it was going to fit, which meant it couldn't possibly fit Johnny.

Maybe Johnny kept around a lot of extra clothes for all the different sized men he slept with, Evan reasoned. That seemed like the kind of weirdly OCD thing Johnny might do. He could hear Johnny's ever-so-slightly off-key singing in the shower through the closed bathroom door. He needed to get dressed and get out of here before Johnny got out of the shower. It had been a few years since Evan's last walk of shame, but he knew for damn sure he had to get gone before anyone found out he'd been at Johnny's house.

He shrugged into the shirt and, hey, there were jeans in his size in the drawer below that one. Evan couldn't stop himself from poking through the rest of the drawers; those were his brand of boxers, and those were his favorite kind of socks, and those were definitely his warm-up clothes. Evan boggled at the dresser. Where were Johnny's clothes? Surely he didn't keep an entire dresser around just in case of a hook up.

A cold sense of creeping dread swept over Evan. Something was really, really wrong with this picture. He pulled open the closet drawer, and there were all the clothes he'd been expecting to see: silk and glitter and fur and giant purses, all overflowing from a walk-in closet bigger than Evan's first apartment. That made sense, at least. It was the first thing that had made sense since he'd woken up. Johnny was still Johnny, at least.

The bathroom door swung open, and Evan realized he'd missed his chance to run screaming out into the morning. "I'm not going to have time to put my face on, am I," Johnny sighed. He was wearing a towel around his hips, but just barely. Evan refused to look. "I know I promised we'd be on time this week, but I can't show up like this. What would Tanith say?"

"What does Tanith have to do with anything?" Evan asked, a little shocked.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "I know, right?" He pushed past Evan and started grabbing stuff out of the closet, a pair of black stretch pants and a black hooded sweater. "But you know she's going to bitch."

"Uh," said Evan. "Is she?" Why would Tanith be at Johnny's practice rink? Why was Johnny acting like Evan was going to be at his practice rink?

"She usually does," said Johnny. "You know I love her to death, you _know_ I do, but she is totally a jealous bitch sometimes." He folded the towel before he put it in the hamper. Who did that?

"Jealous of you?" Evan asked, trying to feel his way through this conversation that made no sense.

Johnny smiled at him. It wasn't his usual camera smile, or his I'm-flirting-to-fuck-with-you smile, or his thank-god-I-didn't-fall smile. Evan recognized all of those. This was something more sincere. It made Evan intensely uncomfortable, because he was absolutely sure he didn't deserve Johnny smiling at him like that when he was planning to run away as soon as he got the chance.

"Because I get you," Johnny said, and went up on his tiptoes to give Evan a peck on the mouth.

The entire universe was apparently out of whack. Evan closed his eyes and concentrated really hard on trying to wake up. Obviously he was having a nightmare. His clothes were at Johnny Weir's apartment and they woke up together and Johnny thought they were a couple. Had he gotten drunk and really badly misled him? Was Evan that much of a dick? "Explain to me again about Tanith?" Evan asked weakly. Maybe if he made Johnny talk for long enough he'd work out what Johnny's brain injury was, and then they could start figuring out what was really going on.

The smile dropped off Johnny's face, and he snapped, "I've been telling you and telling you." This was the Johnny Evan expected: prickly and defensive and annoyed. "She thinks you can't concentrate on being her partner while you're my partner. And we were getting along just fine until we started getting close to the Olympics and she started freaking out. Yesterday I had to tell her I wasn't her bitch, bitch."

"Are you feeling okay?" Evan asked cautiously. "You haven't like..., you didn't fall down and hit your head or anything, did you?"

"Mostly I land on my ass, thanks for noticing the giant bruise," Johnny sniped.

"Okay, well..." Evan didn't want to freak Johnny out, but he was totally freaking out himself. "Did _I_ fall down and hit my head?"

Johnny blinked at him with real concern. "Oh my god, did you?" he asked. He put one hand on Evan's forehead. "Are you not feeling well? Is something wrong? I can call Frank and tell him you can't make it today."

Since when was Johnny Weir worried when Evan got injured? "No, I... Uh, this all makes sense to you?" Evan asked, gesturing vaguely at the room. He was waiting for Johnny to yell _Gotcha!_ or _Surprise!_ or _You're on Candid Camera!_

Johnny put his hands on his hips. "Are you freaking out again?" he asked. "Because you signed that lease of your own free will, Evan. Don't you _dare_ start whining like I twisted your arm. I said you could live here for as long as you want and it was fine with me if we just acted casual about it, so you could always have a panic attack and go back to L.A. You're the one who wanted to sell your apartment and put your name on my lease, I never asked you to!"

Johnny was obviously halfway through an argument that Evan couldn't even fathom. "Uh," he said. "No, that's not it."

Johnny kind of deflated a little bit. Evan hadn't even realized he'd been standing with his shoulders up around his ears. "It better not be," Johnny said. "I'm not having that fight again, I hate that fight."

"If my name is on the lease, I'm sure I wanted it there," said Evan, feeling oddly out-of-body about this conversation.

Johnny said, "Uh, okay. Way to be passive-aggressive about it."

"No, I..." Evan wasn't sure what to do. "I mean, this all seems normal to you? My stuff being here? My... living here?"

"I got used to you messing up my laundry system eventually," Johnny said. "Although I don't understand why you can't put your shoes away. I bought you a shoe cubby and everything. But I mean, if I can put up with your silver medal in the living room, I can put up with anything." He stuffed a sweater and some sunglasses in one of his giant bags. "You ready to go? Don't forget your wallet. Are you sure you're feeling okay? You look kind of... feverish or something."

"I'm a little dizzy," Evan admitted. "I think I'll feel better when I see Frank." Frank would know what was going on. Frank would be able to explain what the hell Johnny was talking about. Evan was just going to keep his mouth shut and try to stay sane until then.

"Your work ethic makes me sick," said Johnny. "You want to drive?"

Evan grabbed his wallet off the dresser and followed Johnny into the living room. There was a framed picture of the two of them on the end table, and a set of pictures of his parents and Johnny's parents eating dinner together. That had never happened, as far as Evan knew. The whole place was immaculate and it screamed Johnny -- furs draped over the mirror, luxuriously plush carpets -- except for a pair of brightly-colored sneakers that Evan recognized as his own. Only he hadn't been wearing them the night before. His bag was by the door, too, and his coat.

"You drive," said Evan, because he had no idea how to get from Johnny's apartment to whatever rink Johnny skated at.

"So you _are_ feeling sick," said Johnny triumphantly. "Ha." He tried to fuss over Evan's forehead again, like he was feeling for a fever, and Evan ducked away from his hand.

"Just a little out of sorts," said Evan. There really was a silver medal hanging on the wall, and a framed cover of _Sports Illustrated_ with him and Tanith on it, arms around each others' waists. "Listen," he said, grabbing Johnny's arm as he pulled the door open. "This isn't a really elaborate prank, is it? Lambiel and Plushenko aren't about to jump out in the driveway and yell 'Surprise'?"

"Uh," Johnny said, making a face again. "I don't get it. Surprise what?"

Evan tried to clear his throat. It was really dry, and he wasn't sure he was ever going to feel like he was standing on solid ground again. The whole world might have been swooping in slow circles given how swirled-around his brain felt. _Surprise! You're dating Johnny Weir!_ or _Surprise! We've replaced your entire life with a different one that makes no sense!_ "I think maybe I'm panicking because the Olympics are coming up," said Evan carefully.

"Oh, honey," Johnny said. "I know _that_. You've been on the slow boat to crazytown for weeks now. Are you sure--"

"I want to skate," said Evan firmly. That was one thing that he knew how to do, no matter how insane everything else had become. "Definitely."

"Of course you do," said Johnny, a little fondly. Evan swallowed uncomfortably and tried not to notice.

\--

Johnny drove like a disaster waiting to happen. He was honestly trying to read _In Touch_ on the freeway, with a frozen Starbucks coffee with sugar-free everything in one hand. Evan was pretty sure that if he weren't already dead, experiencing all this from beyond the grave in some twisted version of hell, then he was about to die. "You can't read while you drive," Evan said. "Dude. _Dude_."

"I do this all the time," Johnny said carelessly. He didn't seem surprised when Evan grabbed the magazine out of his hand, though. "Now you have to read it to me," Johnny ordered. "Start with the part about Jen."

Evan wondered who Jen was. He flipped through a couple of pages and stopped on a spread of Jennifer Aniston. "Uh, says 'Jen Renews Her Vows.'"

Johnny sighed romantically. "Isn't that lovely?" he said. "I love wedding stories. I knew all that drama was manufactured. I always said she and Brad were going to make it."

Evan squinted at a picture of Jen and Brad holding hands under a super tacky white awning with rows of family around them. "Wait, didn't they get divorced?" he asked. "What about Angelina Jolie?"

"What _about_ Angelina?" Johnny asked.

"I thought... I thought she and Brad had adopted a hundred kids," Evan said. He was pretty sure that was right, although he hadn't ever paid much attention.

"Oh god, no, Brad married Jen years ago -- they have twins," said Johnny. "They starred in Mr. and Mrs. Smith together, you remember."

Evan didn't. He flipped through other pages. Heath Ledger was apparently working on a Batman sequel, and Tom Cruise was in treatment for alcoholism. That didn't sound right, either. This was all some giant hallucination, he was pretty sure. At this point, he wouldn't have been shocked if the sun had been bright purple.

The universe was askew. Or else this wasn't Evan's universe. If it was a dream, it was a bad one. If it wasn't a dream... Well. That was even wronger. Evan had never spent more than a few minutes with Johnny without wanting to wring his neck. He still kind of wanted to wring his neck -- what kind of lunatic drove while reading?

Why wasn't Johnny acting like he wanted to kill Evan? Johnny couldn't _stand_ him. Like that time in the locker room when Johnny had thrown a fucking boot at his head. Or the seven million interviews where Johnny called him robotic and soulless and too technical and basically accused him of sucking off the judges. How the hell could he and Johnny have started dating, let alone moved in together, when Johnny Weir took every possible excuse to badmouth him just because he could?

Evan gave Johnny a long sidelong glance. Maybe it was a ruse, and in this universe Evan hadn't figured it out. Johnny didn't _look_ like he was plotting, but that was the thing about Johnny; he had such an angelic face, and it hid someone Evan was pretty sure was basically the devil.

"What?" Johnny said. "Do I have something in my teeth? The wind is screwing up my hair, I didn't have time to put gel in it. This sweater is old, I know--"

"You look fine," said Evan. Jesus, Johnny was a little crazy.

"Fine may be enough for _other_ people," said Johnny archly.

"Chill, dude," said Evan.

Johnny fell silent. He acted like he was really involved in watching the traffic, but Evan was pretty sure he was thinking. Johnny pulled off the highway and threw a few stoplights, pulling up in front of an ice rink that was almost deserted except for cars Evan recognized as Frank's and Tanith's.

"Are you really sure you're okay?" Johnny asked quietly. He was biting his lower lip, but he wasn't looking at Evan, he was looking at his hands on the steering wheel.

"I told you, I'm feeling a little weird," said Evan. "I'm sure it'll go away." _Just as soon as all of this does_ , he added to himself.

Johnny hummed unhappily to himself and got out of the car. Evan had to unfold himself as he climbed out; the car was clearly set for Johnny to ride in the passenger seat, because it was a foot farther forward than Evan was comfortable with. He stood up and straightened out, cracking his back a little and stretching from side to side. "You can do that inside," muttered Johnny, grabbing his bag. He was obvoiusly pissed, although Evan had no idea what he'd done. But when had he ever understood anything about Johnny Weir?

At least the rink smelled right. It smelled like every rink Evan had ever practiced in, and as soon as he was inside he felt his whole body start to relax. Whatever else was wrong with the world -- everything -- Evan still knew how to skate.

Johnny was flouncing a few steps ahead of him, so he was the one who pushed the door open and ran straight in to Tanith. Tanith looked... Different. Still recognizably Tanith, but her hair was the wrong shade and she was wearing the wrong color sweater, and the way she was standing was wrong. Something deep in Evan's stomach told him immediately that this Tanith wasn't _his_ version of her.

"I thought you were going to be late," Tanith said, hands on her hips. "You promised you were going to start dragging Johnny here on time, Evan, and we need to..." She trailed off suddenly, looking at Johnny. "Did something happen?"

Johnny shrugged with one shoulder. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, in a snotty, supercilious voice. "Everything is always fine, darling, how are you?"

Tanith wasn't stupid. She narrowed her eyes and glared at Evan. "What did you do?" she demanded.

"I didn't do anything!" Evan protested. He honestly hadn't.

"Johnny?" asked Tanith.

Johnny waved a dismissive hand at Evan. "Sometimes the robot loses the chip that tells him how to interact with humans," he said. Evan flinched. "I'm going to warm up, I'll see you later." He pushed his way toward the ice so he could change into skates.

Tanith poked Evan in the chest. "What happened?" she asked.

"How should I know? Maybe I said something wrong because I'm not feeling very well," Evan protested weakly. Wasn't Johnny kind of known for throwing fits? Johnny had implied that he and Tanith were at each other's throats, but Tanith was acting more like an angry mother bear. Evan had seen her do that before, when they were dating, which maybe they had never done in this version of reality.

"You should tell him that, then!" Tanith said. "Let him baby you, he loves that. Right now he looks like you ran over his dog. If he had one."

"How am I supposed to know what makes Johnny act weird?" Evan asked, just a split second before he realized that if he were living with Johnny, he probably would have at least some idea.

Tanith shook her head. "You're the one who said it was hot. You made your bed, you sure seem to enjoy lying in it. Now sack up and apologize to your boyfriend before he bursts into tears and Galina kills you with a skate blade."

"I don't even know what I'm apologizing for!" Evan said. "And he's not really going to cry." They hadn't even yelled at each other. Evan had dated plenty of chicks; he knew the yelling came before the crying. "Plus, he called me a robot, how is that fair?"

"You are kind of..." Tanith mimed moving her arms around stiffly. Then she began giggling. "Sorry, I'm sorry, you know I love you. Put on your skates before Johnny chews up the ice."

"We're sharing ice?" Evan asked bleakly. He'd really been hoping to get away from the whole Johnny Problem for a while, maybe ask Frank what the fuck was going on. But Tanith already had her skates on, and now Johnny did, too, and they were stepping out on to the ice together. Tanith was asking Johnny something, and Johnny shrugged and said something back. They were _gossiping about him_ , weren't they. Holy shit. Somehow Evan's worst nightmare -- waking up in bed with Johnny Weir -- was getting worse. Now his ex-girlfriend and Johnny Weir were probably talking about how much he sucked in bed or something. Evan might be the first one to cry.

"Evan!" yelled Frank, snapping him out of his reverie. "Get out here and get warm! Before the Russian bitch shows up!"

From the other side of the rink, Galina shouted in her heavy accent, "Russian bitch is here! Kiss your ass goodbye!"

This was so much worse than Evan had expected somehow. He felt numb all over. Everyone else had gone crazy and they all thought this was how things were supposed to be, and if Evan tried to call a universal time out they would probably ship him off to the loony bin. Johnny could maybe have gotten Tanith to play a prank along with him, but Galina? No way in hell. And _Frank_? No chance. Evan was the only one who knew everything was wrong. This was the life of some other Evan, one who had terrible taste in dating and skated pairs.

Evan's phone beeped suddenly. He dug it out of his jacket pocket. _Text from Stéphane_ , it said, which was strange, because Evan didn't have Stéphane's number. But of course this wasn't really his phone, this was some Other Evan's phone. At least it was the same model, so Evan knew how to click and get the text. _The eagle has landed!_ Stéphane had written. Now what in hell was that supposed to mean?

"Evan! The path to success--"

"Begins with the first step, I know," said Evan, pulling on his skates. Frank was definitely exactly the same. Evan dropped his phone back in his pocket and hoped that Stéphane didn't expect him to do anything about eagles.

Evan warmed up the way he always did, with Frank watching him carefully. Tanith and Johnny were skating together, whispering about something, but Evan ignored them and concentrated on getting the blood flowing and his legs loose. He was fine while he was skating, he figured. His body was still the same, and it still knew how to do all the same things.

He felt good about it, in fact, right up until Tanith skated over to him and said, "Ready to try some lifts?"

"Oh, shit," said Evan. He hadn't done a lift in years, except goofing around sometimes in practices. If they were just before the Olympics, like in his world, that meant he should have a whole routine with Tanith, with lifts and jumps and throws and Evan had literally no idea what they were or if he could do them. If he tried he'd probably drop Tanith and break her ankle. Or her neck. And if he didn't try, he was going to have to explain why.

Tanith skated beside him as he circled the rink. "Johnny was right, you are acting weird today. Did you really call him 'dude'?"

"What's wrong with calling him dude?" asked Evan blankly.

"He's your _boyfriend_ not your bro," Tanith said, smacking him. She did a few crossovers and singled a jump, landing backwards so she could yell at him more efficiently.

"Is that why he was pissed?" asked Evan. "That's like...wow, okay, note to self, Johnny is not a dude."

Tanith crossed her arms and gave him a _look_.

"I mean," Evan said hastily, "he's a dude, he's just not a _dude_. Crap, I don't know what I mean. I won't say it again, okay?"

"Lifts?" Tanith asked again.

"Oh, um..." said Evan, trying to figure out how he could stall for time. "Maybe we could work on some side-by-side stuff first? Individual jumps or spins or something?"

Tanith looked suspicious, but she shrugged. "Fine," she said.

Evan was clearly going to have to fake an injury to get out of this mess. He did a quick turn around the rink again and watched Johnny at the other end, warming up his spins. Evan had watched Johnny warm up at a few competitions, but he'd always had the impression that Johnny was kind of goofing around. He had seemed serious right before they skated against each other, but in practice Johnny was just as likely to wear a pink fur sweater and skate for ten minutes before holding court with all the junior skaters as he was to actually rehearse.

Maybe it was because this was a different Johnny in a different universe, but he was a lot more focused than Evan had expected. He did a couple of single axels and then skated over to Galina, nodding earnestly when she said something in Russian. He looked serious and studious. If nothing else had convinced Evan he wasn't in his own world, that would have done it.

Tanith skated by, poking him in the arm. "Oh my god, you two are sickening."

"What?" Evan asked, jerking back to reality. At the moment the Tanith Problem was clearly superceding the Johnny Problem.

"The way you watch him," said Tanith teasingly. "You live together -- god, isn't that enough? I can't get a few hours of you a day?"

Evan felt his cheeks heating up. "No, no, I was just watching him warm up, I wasn't--"

"Checking him out?" teased Tanith. "Uh huh. I know that far away look. Save it for the bedroom, Evan."

Evan was pretty sure the ice was going to start melting around him, he was blushing so hard. "Shut up," he said. "I was _not_."

"I bet all that flexibility comes in handy," Tanith said admiringly, watching Johnny.

Evan's brain abruptly added "Johnny" and "flexible" and "naked" together and supplied him with a wave of images that almost made him skate into the wall.

"Ha!" said Tanith. "I knew it!"

Evan was saved from actually trying to poke his own eyeballs out by Frank hollering, "Are you two gonna chat out there like little girls all day, or am I gonna see some skating?"

Galina shouted back, "What is wrong with being girl?"

"Russia versus America is alive and well, huh?" Evan muttered.

Tanith rolled her eyes and nodded. "I still can't believe Johnny talked Galina into this."

Evan had no idea what he was going to do once they were supposed to start going through their routine, so he preemptively asked Frank if they could just work on elements today. Frank clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Back to basics! I like it!" Evan breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Evan was so out of place and distracted it was no real wonder he fumbled his footwork and fell on more jumps than usual. Normally he didn't care, but normally he was alone, and Frank could always pep talk him back into a good mental space. Now he was trying to fake his way through a practice with Tanith watching and bitching at him. And he was pretty sure Johnny was watching him too; certainly he was watching Johnny. All the grace and natural fluidity Evan had to fight for every day, Johnny just had. On the other hand, Johnny fell pretty much every time he tried a quad, which was a lot. Galina was shouting at him in Russian, and Johnny wasn't shouting back, but his face had gone all neutrally blank in a way that Evan suspected meant one of them was going to melt down pretty soon.

Honestly, Evan wasn't doing a lot better. He wasn't really focused, and after the millionth time he double-footed his landing Tanith skated off in disgust for water, although Evan suspected it was because she didn't want to start yelling at him. He felt bad, but she wasn't _really_ his partner.

Across the ice, Johnny wiped out on another quad and Galina shook her head, saying something in Russian that sounded like it translated to, "I give up!" Whatever it was, Johnny picked himself up and brushed the ice off his ass -- not that Evan was looking -- and stomped out of the rink, banging through the double doors to the hall.

Evan skated to a stop in front of Frank. "That looked bad," he said.

Frank rolled his eyes. "You want ten minutes to go after him? Fine. But I want quads and combinations when you get back."

"No, I just meant--" Evan said.

"Go!" said Frank. "Your ten minutes started already."

Everyone was looking at Evan, and they all clearly expected him to go talk Johnny down. He had no idea how to do that, obviously; if Johnny was so touchy that just calling him "dude" made him flip out, Evan was probably going to make the whole thing worse. But Evan couldn't explain that, no, really, in _his_ world, Johnny stomping off in a pout was a victory, so he sighed and followed Johnny out.

Johnny was standing in the hall, leaning against the wall with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. He was pink-cheeked and panting a little bit, sweat making his hair curl over his forehead.

 _That's what he looks like after sex_ , Evan's brain announced.

Evan hated his brain.

"I don't want to talk about it," snapped Johnny, not opening his eyes.

"Okay," said Evan.

Johnny opened his eyes. "Seriously?" he asked. "You're not going to give me one of your idiotic pep talks?" He sounded disappointed and annoyed at the same time.

Evan automatically said, "They're not idiotic. You have to visualize the landing. You have to picture yourself getting all four revolutions and believe you're a champion."

Johnny's mouth quirked up into a tiny smile. "There's my boy."

"You don't believe you're going to land it cleanly, and then you don't. And you know you have to up the difficulty of your program if you're going to get points against Plushenko and me," Evan insisted. Did Johnny even plan to include a quad in his program? He hadn't last Evan had seen him skate, but that was a different universe.

"Skate against you?" Johnny asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I kicked your ass at Nationals."

Johnny sighed a little bit. "If you say so," he said. "I know you and Tanith got silver, but I fought for that bronze."

Right, right, Evan reminded himself. He didn't compete against Johnny here. Once he started thinking about what he was going to say, his voice got flatter. "You can do it," he said, sounding awkward. "You can skate well."

Johnny started giggling. "It's a good thing I know you actually mean that," he snickered. "Because you sound like you're reading a script."

Evan hoped Johnny's version of him was better at this. "I've seen you skate really beautifully," he said. That was true. Maybe he could manage this if he stuck to stuff he could verify. "You just don't always... You're thinking too much about edges and rotation, and you aren't jumping with confidence. You have to know you're awesome, no matter what Galina says or how many times you land on your ass."

Johnny sighed. "I'm sorry I'm such a ball of nerves right now. Galina thinks I need a quad for Vancouver, and I don't have it, and I just... I hate it when you cheer me up." One of his hands snaked out a little faster than Evan was expecting, caught Evan's warm-up jacket, and pulled him in.

Evan was abruptly kissing Johnny Weir.

He made a startled little noise as he stumbled forward and caught himself against the wall with a flat, open palm, bracketing Johnny's head with his arms. Johnny was up on his tiptoes, pulling Evan down with one hand wrapped in the front of his jacket and the other arm around Evan's waist. Johnny was so warm, Evan could feel him through all the layers of their clothes.

Somehow it was not as horrible as Evan would have assumed.

He was too tall and he had to crane his neck too far, but Johnny's actual mouth was soft and open and he kissed like he was drowning in Evan. Evan was definitely, completely, almost entirely straight, but it wasn't too hard to pretend Johnny was a girl. Although actually Evan didn't really want to pretend he was kissing a girl. He could feel muscle underneath Johnny's sweater, where their chests were pressed together, and it was different, but it wasn't bad. He kind of wanted Johnny to take his sweater off so Evan could see all that muscle again, and maybe run his hands across it. Johnny thought they were dating, so he wouldn't mind.

Johnny laughed against his mouth. "I can feel it when you start thinking," he said. Evan pulled back just a little bit, and there were Johnny's big green eyes and those goddamn girly lashes again. Distractingly up close and personal. "I'm sorry I was a bitch earlier," said Johnny contritely. "I can tell from your skating you're really not feeling so hot. Should I make an excuse for Frank and Galina and take you home?" Johnny's hand wandered down Evan's side and settled on his ass. Evan tried not to jump. "I can think of things that we could do instead," Johnny said, voice dropping a few notes.

Evan was surprised that he almost said yes. _Bro, you don't sleep with dudes_ , he reminded himself, but neither his brain nor his dick entirely believed him. He couldn't remember the last time someone had noticed him having trouble with his skating and hadn't thought the solution was a double-length training session.

The door swung open from the rink. "Johnny! You are stop pouting, be big man!" shouted Galina. "You fall is okay! Evan! Bring Johnny here to me for skating! Is your fault, is too much sex making him to fall down!"

"Save me," whispered Johnny, clinging to Evan's arm.

Evan wasn't quite ready for that. "We're coming!" Evan yelled back, pulling Johnny away from the wall. Was Galina really yelling about their _sex life_? Jesus.

Johnny stuck his lip out and pouted. "You _suck_."

"Visualize the Olympics," said Evan, trying not to visualize something else, involving himself and Johnny and the word "suck."

\--

On his way back in, Galina tugged on Evan's jacket and said sternly, "Don't forgetting promise."

Shit, what had he promised her? Evan hoped it was nothing about sex, because she terrified him. "Okay," Evan said. "I won't."

"Very delicate, I am watching," said Galina darkly, and let him skate back out onto the ice.

The rest of the morning was a haze of avoiding doing any actual lifts with Tanith and trying to stay out of Johnny's way; Evan wasn't used to sharing ice, and he wasn't used to having a partner he had to pay attention to. Frank was still Frank, basically: lots of inspirational speeches punctuated by yelling at Evan for losing focus. But Evan wasn't skating very well, he had to admit. He was too worried that he was losing his mind.

They paused for lunch and Evan got another weird text message from Stéphane. _Have you arrived in Mordor???_

"Hey, Johnny," Evan said, "is Stéphane getting weirder?"

"That would be hard," said Johnny.

"Huh," said Evan, and put his phone back in his pocket.

Galina said something long and Russian to Johnny, who nodded a lot from the bench, pulling off his skate. "Okay," said Johnny. "Sure, if you think so."

"Is good!" said Galina, clapping her hands together. She pulled her coat up around her neck, glared hard at Frank, and stomped out.

"Is she off to blockade Berlin?" asked Evan.

Johnny shook his head. He was smiling like he didn't want to think Evan was funny, but he couldn't help it and it annoyed him. "You need new jokes. She says we look like shit and we can go home early today. I know you have that insane work ethic, and I find it endearing as always, but I think we should split while we can."

"Oh," said Evan, a little surprised. Frank never let him go home early. Evan was used to marathon skating sessions, especially leading up to the Olympics.

He was even more surprised when Frank said, "Enjoy your afternoon off, guys," and slapped Evan on the back. Then he winked. It was incredibly weird and wrong.

"Everyone is acting a little strange today, right?" Johnny asked quietly. "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but..."

"Ha," said Evan sourly. "You have no idea."

"Pack up quick before they change their minds," said Johnny. He gave Evan a peck on the cheek and went off to assemble whatever shiny things Johnny Weir carried around with him all day.

Tanith ducked over. She was almost vibrating with excitement as she gave Evan a grin. "Are you ready?" she asked.

Oh, Christ, what else was going on? "Maybe?" Evan hazarded.

"I want _details_ ," ordered Tanith. "And pictures. Lots of pictures. And texts, as soon as it's over, okay?"

She... couldn't possibly have been talking about what Evan thought she was talking about. "Really?" he asked.

"Of course!" Tanith squealed. "Good luck! I can't wait to hear all about it!" She disappeared into the women's changing room.

Evan stared after her. He was obviously misreading the whole situation, but no matter how he wracked his brain he couldn't come up with any other explanation. What kind of fucked up relationship did he and Johnny have where Tanith demanded _pictures_?

"Are you ready?" yelled Johnny, standing by the door.

Evan shook himself out of his reverie. "Be right there," Evan replied.

"Go get 'em, champ!" said Frank. Galina gave him a thumbs up.

This universe was even stranger than Evan had suspected.

\---

Evan was honestly surprised Johnny didn't get pulled over, his driving was so very, very terrifyingly bad. "If you're going to sit there with your teeth clenched and panic all over your face, why don't you just drive?" Johnny asked, pulling across three lanes of traffic without signaling or checking his mirror.

"Normally I drive everywhere, don't I," Evan said. He was bracing himself against the dashboard with one hand and clutching the seat with the other.

"Pfft," said Johnny. "Oooh, my phone!"

Evan snatched it out of his hand before he could answer it. "I don't want to die. Can you please just watch the road?"

"We're almost home," said Johnny. "Relax. I won't tell my mom."

It was amazing how quickly Evan worked out what that meant. "I promised her I'd drive us," Evan said grimly. "Your mother is a smart woman."

"You don't need to suck up to her anymore; she likes you fine now. And even you have to admit she worries too much," Johnny shrugged, pulling back across all the lanes of traffic to exit the highway.

"Or," Evan countered, "she prefers you all in one piece."

Johnny pulled in to the parking lot of his apartment complex. "Home, see? No one died. Give me my phone." He attempted to park while reading his texts and narrowly missed a dog and a mailbox, completely by coincidence.

Evan was out of the car almost before Johnny had turned it off. He took a couple of deep breaths to remind himself that he was still alive, even if he was in the wrong universe with the wrong people doing the wrong things.

"Paris wants to know how I am, with seven question marks," Johnny frowned. "That's how _you_ usually punctuate stuff. Huh. Why wouldn't I be fine? He's so weird."

"He?" Evan asked. Wasn't Paris Hilton a chick? Maybe that was different in this world, too. How had Paris and Johnny become friends?

"Don't tease," said Johnny. "Oh my god, I am so sore and tired. I might go take a nap. You want to join me?"

Evan followed him up the stairs and into the apartment. He was pretty sure Johnny didn't actually just mean a nap, and Evan wasn't prepared to send Tanith pictures of anything yet. There was kind of a moral gray area here, wasn't there? Johnny thought he was having sex with some other Evan, so he was technically cheating by accident. Or at least, that was what Evan told himself when he said, "Nah, I think I'll watch TV instead." Johnny's face fell, although he hid it quickly. Evan tried not to feel hugely guilty. This wasn't his Johnny to sleep with.

Not that Evan had a Johnny to sleep with.

Not that Evan _wanted_ a Johnny to sleep with. Just, it had been a long time since he'd been sort of serious with Tanith, and the idea of a house and a boyfriend -- girlfriend! -- and all this stuff didn't seem as awful and oppressive as he might have expected.

"Fine, whatever," said Johnny, with a little shrug, and vanished into the bedroom. It was the first time Evan had been alone all day.

Apparently his brain had just been waiting for ten quiet minutes so it could start freaking out. The first thing Evan thought was _How did I get here?_ And then, _How will I get back?_ and _What if I can't get back and I have to date Johnny Weir and skate pairs with Tanith and I screw it up and we don't medal and Johnny kicks me out and everyone hates me and I am stuck in this world forever???_

Evan realized he wasn't breathing and sat down hard on the couch. He put his head between his knees and counted breaths until he got to a hundred and his brain had stopped screaming at him. Maybe none of this was really happening. Maybe if he could just fall asleep, he'd wake up back where things made sense. Maybe he was having a psychotic break and his life had always been this insane.

His phone beeped. Evan picked it up automatically. _Am I too early???_ Stephane had written.

 _No?_ Evan typed back. Stéphane was in Europe, so he was five hours ahead. Or behind. So maybe he was early, or maybe he was late. It made Evan's head hurt. Stéphane didn't text back, and Evan assumed that meant he'd figured out what time it was.

Evan knew it was only a matter of time before he screwed something up. Either he was going to hurt Tanith by dropping her, or he was going to hurt Johnny by calling him dude, or he was going to hurt himself when he said something about his old life and got locked up in an insane asylum. He needed to figure out how to get home.

The doorbell rang. Evan hoped to god it wasn't Paris Hilton, because he had no idea how he was going to deal with that. He sat as still as possible on the couch, hoping whoever it was would go away, but the bell rang again, and Evan didn't want Johnny to wake up. Johnny was a whole _thing_. Evan wasn't sure how long he could keep Johnny satisfied that he really was Evan, without having to... well. If he had to, he would. Maybe Johnny could be fended off with kissing.

Evan opened the door to Stéphane, looking floppy-haired and grinning. "My friend!" Stéphane said, holding his arms out. He hugged Evan and kissed him three times, alternating cheeks.

Evan was pretty sure he didn't know Stéphane well enough for that, but hey, maybe in this version of reality Stéphane was a pairs skater too, or something. "Hey," said Evan, wondering if he was supposed to kiss Stéphane back, or if he was excused for lack of being European.

"May I wish you many happy congratulations!" Stéphane said happily.

"Uh, sure?" Evan hazarded. He wondered if Stéphane was talking about the silver he and Tanith apparently had won.

Johnny, who had clearly not really been napping, opened the bedroom door. "Stéphane!" he gasped. "Oh my god, what are you--" He lapsed into something that was probably French, and Stéphane replied in French, and they Frenched at each other while they hugged and kissed and Evan stood awkwardly behind them, trying not to loom too much.

"But what are you doing here?" Johnny demanded, dragging Stéphane into the living room.

Stéphane turned and looked at Evan. Evan froze awkwardly. After a second Johnny frowned and turned to look at Evan, too.

"What?" Johnny said. "Is something going on?"

"Evan?" prompted Stéphane.

"Stéphane?" countered Evan.

Stéphane put his hands on his his hips. "You haven't..." he said, trailing off with a significant eyebrow waggle.

"Haven't _what_?" demanded Johnny impatiently. "My birthday is months away, what the actual fuck are we talking about?"

Stéphane gestured at Evan.

Shit, shit, shit, _shit_. Obviously this Evan had something planned and Stéphane had been texting about it all day, but Evan had no idea what he was supposed to say. He hoped if he just looked blank enough Stéphane would jump in and explain, but Stéphane was looking more and more disapprovingly at him.

"May we talk alone a moment?" Stéphane said abruptly to Johnny.

"No," said Johnny, crossing his arms. "Are you kidding? Are you two up to something? Oh my god, are you having an _affair_? Wait, that's stupid. I want to know what's going on!"

"And you will," said Stéphane, smoothly taking Johnny by the arm and pushing him toward the bedroom door. "But first, we must have a moment, Evan and I."

"Evan!" Johnny protested, bracing himself against the door to the bedroom. "Tell Stéphane that this is my house and I can stay--"

Stéphane had a couple inches and a decent number of pounds on Johnny, and he simply picked him up with an arm around his waist and hustled him into the bedroom. Then he slammed the door shut and leaned against it.

"I'm going to eavesdrop!" Johnny hollered.

Stéphane rolled his eyes. "He is adorable as always," he said. Then he lowered his voice, whispering so quietly Evan was mostly reading his lips. "Your feet are cold?"

"My feet are..." Evan frowned at Stéphane. "They're fine."

Stéphane looked amazingly pained. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand. "No," he whispered. "You have the cold feet and you have not asked Johnny yet, but you sent me a text that it was fine to come over. Sometimes I wonder if your brain, it is turned on all the way."

"My brain is fine," bristled Evan.

"So?" Stéphane demanded. "Why have you not asked him yet? Many, many people are waiting for the news! The party tonight will be most awkward if you do not tell Johnny why we have gathered."

All the strange and mysterious conversations Evan had been having all day wandered slowly one way across his brain, and Stéphane's voice saying, "Your feet are cold... why have you not asked him yet?" wandered the other way. They collided with the kind of impact Johnny's driving probably had on pedestrians.

"Holy shit!" Evan yelped. "I was going to _ask him to_ \--"

"Shhhh!" hissed Stéphane.

Evan couldn't stop his mouth from hanging open. "Oh my god," said Evan. "Oh my god!"

Stéphane looked doubtfully at him. "You seem a bit more... surprised than I expected. I thought this from Johnny, not you."

"I can't... I need... Oh my god," said Evan again.

This Evan was going to propose. He must have a ring somewhere, and plans, and Evan had no idea what those plans were. Or where the ring was, for that matter. Where could Evan possibly have hidden a ring that crazy OCD Johnny wouldn't have found it?

If Evan screwed this up, he was going to have to explain to everyone in this version of the world why he hadn't proposed to Johnny. Oh, shit. Oh, _shit_.

 _Okay, bro_ , he told himself firmly, _you can fake this. Think about your end game. Think strategy. How do you propose to a dude?_ Conceivably the same way you proposed to a chick, although Evan had never given much thought to that, either. But Evan should be able to figure out what some other Evan had planned. They weren't _that_ different. Johnny hadn't accused him of being his own evil twin or anything. Whatever Other Evan was doing, Evan could do it, too.

It occurred to him suddenly that there might be some other version of himself running around in _his life_ right now. He tried to imagine how the real version of Johnny would react to Evan showing up suddenly at his door with a kiss and a ring. He winced. Johnny would probably kick this version of Evan in the balls and scream bloody murder until the cops came.

Johnny banged on the door. "Let me out of here right now or I'm calling the cops!"

Speaking of. "Shit," Evan whispered. "I'm uh... I'm not ready! I panicked, I need more time to plan."

Stéphane pursed his lips. "There is a _party_ ," he pointed out.

"Tonight?" Evan winced. He needed more than a couple of hours to get this together.

Stéphane considered. "I will make you a deal, my friend," he said quietly. "I can arrange the party to be tomorrow. Give you one more day. But, and I wish to be clear as glasses, if tomorrow I find out you have broken Johnny's heart somehow, I will kill you very quietly, and no one will find your body."

"I'll try not to call him dude while I propose," joked Evan weakly.

Stéphane was not amused. "See that you do not," he said, and stepped away from the door.

Johnny burst out, hands on his hips. "I'm going to kick both of you out of my apartment. There is no keeping secrets unless it involves presents for me!"

"Perhaps it does!" said Stéphane gaily. "Evan and I, we have much to discuss for tomorrow night." He winked at Evan.

"I hate both of you!" Johnny pouted, stomping into the kitchen.

Stéphane said, "Then I shall leave you alone to discuss this hatred."

"You just got here!" Johnny objected.

"Ah, but I am retired now, I can come and go as I please," Stéphane smiled. "Give me a hug, my friend, and I will see you tomorrow."

Johnny looked bewildered and belligerent, but he hugged Stéphane.

Stéphane hugged Evan, too, but it was less a hug and more an attempt to warn him through near asphyxiation. "Tomorrow," said Stéphane darkly.

"Absolutely," Evan agreed. He had no idea what he would have figured out by tomorrow, but there was always a chance that by tomorrow he'd wake up back in his own world, instead of stuck here trying to plan a proposal on short notice to someone he barely knew.

Stéphane left, but Johnny's curiosity and pouting were off the charts of anything Evan had ever seen before. "So, uh," Evan said. "Done napping?"

"Do you actually think I'm stupid?" Johnny demanded. "You're the most awkward liar in the world, just tell me what it is and I'll pretend to be surprised tomorrow, okay?"

Evan considered that, but it wasn't really going to work unless he found the ring. He definitely would have bought one, he just needed to work out where he had hidden it. "No," said Evan. "It's going to be a surprise."

Johnny crossed his arms. "It's not my birthday."

"Right," Evan agreed, looking around the living room. He couldn't have left the ring in a drawer, because it looked like Johnny organized all the drawers.

"And it's not _your_ birthday."

"Not yet," Evan said. Would he have kept it somewhere besides the house? Where would be a safe place? At the rink, maybe, but they shared that ice with other people during the day, so that didn't sound right, either.

"Evan!" Johnny snapped, stomping his foot. "Tell me right now, or I swear to god, I will go to my mother's house and I am never coming back! You can't just--"

Evan needed quiet to figure stuff out, and he needed to not fuck this up so badly that Johnny would say no if and when he found the ring. He just wanted to keep things together at the bare minimum, so when the other Evan got back his life wouldn't be ruined. There was no quiet to be had with Johnny yelling and stomping around the apartment; Evan needed to shut him up for a little while.

It was pure instinct, based on years of competing against Johnny, and a pretty good impression of what this Johnny was like in general. Evan grabbed Johnny's arms with both hands and kissed him. Johnny was stiff, trying to pull away for a second, but Evan had a hell of a height advantage and he was pretty sure Johnny didn't actually object. He'd been hinting about it all day. Sure enough, after a moment Johnny moaned and melted against Evan.

He was a really good kisser. It made Evan wonder what else he was good at. This was probably how other-Evan had gotten in to this mess in the first place. It had been years since Evan had just wanted to kiss someone like this; kissing was usually a means to an end. But Evan liked touching Johnny, he liked the way Johnny felt under his hands, and the way Johnny smelled, clean but not overly girly. He liked the way Johnny couldn't help making little noises against Evan's mouth, the way he shivered when Evan rasped his stubble against Johnny's chin or kissed his neck.

"I am not this easy," said Johnny breathlessly. He wasn't especially convincing.

"Okay," said Evan. Johnny was too short for this to work really well standing up, and Evan was abruptly totally interested in finding out what it felt like if they were less awkward, so he pushed Johnny toward the couch, kissing his collar bone until Johnny's eyes fluttered shut and he tipped his head back, purring a little bit. The couch hit Evan's knees and he fell sideways, pulling Johnny with him.

Johnny climbed on top of him. In theory Evan objected to that, but in practice having Johnny pressed against him, with his hand in Evan's hair and his other hand skimming underneath Evan's shirt, was really nice. "Don't think I'm going to give up," Johnny said. He kissed Evan's neck, right at the spot that made Evan groan. Of course Johnny would know about that spot, Evan reminded himself. He was having trouble concentrating on anything, including remembering why this was a bad idea.

Surely he'd had a reason not to do this before, hadn't he? Evan leaned back against the arm of the couch. Johnny was undoing the buttons on Evan's shirt with the quick fingers of long practice. Evan would have reciprocated, but his brain was starting to short out.

Why hadn't he done this before? Johnny was so _good_ at it. Johnny leaned over and started licking Evan's nipple. He had the advantage here; Evan had only made out with one other dude, and that had been an awkward, drunken mistake. Johnny had years of working Evan's erogenous zones.

"I bet I could get you to tell me anything right now," said Johnny smugly.

"Nuh uh," Evan managed, trying to remember to breathe.

"Oh, _please_ ," said Johnny, sitting up. "One half-decent blowjob and you're putty in my hands. Are you kidding?"

There was no universe in which Evan could stand Johnny being that self-satisfied. He growled a little and grabbed Johnny, because there wasn't really room to roll easily on the couch. Evan was a little too tall to fit comfortably, but it gave him an advantage, leverage-wise. He managed to shove Johnny over so he had his back against the back of the couch and swing one of his legs over Johnny's, grinding down deliberately to hear Johnny gasp.

"You are... so predictable," Johnny said, losing his breath. He was flushed and panting and Evan needed a lot of skin, right now. He grabbed Johnny's shirt with a little less finesse than he maybe should have and started yanking. "Oww, my elbow, my necklace is caught in my _hair_ ," Johnny objected, squirming around so Evan could drag his shirt off. Evan hadn't been awake enough earlier to appreciate how Johnny was all muscle and soft skin, but he did now.

Evan ran his hands over Johnny's stomach, fascinated. "Do you moisturize this?" he asked. Even Tanith hadn't felt so silky.

"Stop making fun of me," Johnny ordered. He pulled Evan closer, pressing their bare chests together. It felt really, really good.

Evan needed to remember to do this when he got home. Definitely.

"There isn't enough room on the couch," Johnny said, in a rough, scratchy voice. "Bedroom?"

That was the word that tripped the panic switch in Evan's brain. Making out on the couch was awesome, and if it ended up involving mouths and hands and nakedness he was fine. But the bedroom was where sex happened.

Evan did not have sex with dudes. Not even pretty, pretty dudes with girly hands who were trying to get inside his pants. Evan liked it when people got inside his pants, he actively encouraged it. He just wasn't ready for _Johnny fucking Weir_ to be inside his pants.

"Wait, hang on, whoa," said Evan, scrambling backwards and falling off the couch. He landed on his ass with an undignified thump.

Johnny sat up. His hair was _so clearly sex hair_ that for a minute Evan could only sit and blink at him. "Hang on why?" Johnny demanded. "What is _up_ with you today? Did I do something? Are you mad at me?" He was trying really hard to sound angry, but he didn't. He sounded plaintive. He straightened his necklace out and ran a hand through his hair.

"No," said Evan. "Just... Frank and Galina didn't give us an afternoon off to screw around, you know?" He tried to kick his brain into high gear and think of another reason Frank might have given him the afternoon off, but Evan had never asked for an afternoon off, and Frank had never offered one. That wasn't how he worked.

"Okay," said Johnny, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. "I guess."

He sounded _sad_. Evan had heard Johnny sound pissy and bitchy and angry and haughty and nasty and ridiculous, but in all his years of sitting a couple of chairs over from the guy with cameras in their faces he had never heard Johnny sound sad. _Dude doesn't get sad in public. He trusts you_ , Evan's brain told him. It sounded disapproving.

Evan was supposed to be making Johnny deliriously happy, and instead he was bumming him out. Minus a million, billion points for Evan Lysacek, he decided.

"No, c'mon, don't be like that," he said, just barely catching himself when he wanted to call Johnny _dude_. "We looked kind of crappy on the ice today, and we need some time off to get back into the competitive headspace," Evan improvised. "Relaxing, not getting worked up. Oh shit, doesn't Galina not let you..." He paused and kind of waggled his head at Johnny. He had heard.... things... about Galina.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "I'm not _supposed_ to, but that doesn't mean I don't _ever_ ," he said. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it back on.

"Before the Olympics?" Evan asked. "I think I promised her we wouldn't." At least, that might have been what he'd promised her. Or he might have promised her he'd use a clown car for the proposal, Evan had no idea how much the other him talked to Galina. He'd never said anything to her except one time he'd stepped on her scarf leaving the rink and she'd said something in Russian that was definitely not family friendly.

Johnny groaned. "You're supposed to like me more than you're afraid of Galina."

"I do," said Evan, a little startled to realize it was true. Galina was pretty scary. Johnny didn't look entirely reassured, though, so he added, "I uh. I love you."

Evan had said that to his parents and to the odd girlfriend right after sex. He hadn't ever expected to say it to a dude. Particularly this dude. He didn't think he'd said it very well; he sounded tentative and confused.

It seemed to be enough for Johnny, because he laughed a little bit. "I know," Johnny said. "You're so fucking lucky I know."

"Can I get back on the couch?" Evan asked uncertainly.

"You sit over there." Johnny pointed imperiously. "But don't touch me. I need my space bubble." He spent a couple of minutes rearranging his hair carefully and ignoring Evan, while Evan flipped on the TV and tried to shrink as far into the corner of the couch as he could. He didn't really want to touch Johnny right now, either. Part of him felt guilty for not being Johnny's real Evan, and part of him was insisting loudly that he was supposed to be mostly straight. Evan was starting to have doubts about that, frankly, and it wasn't freaking him out as much as he had expected.

They settled on some reality TV show about cleaning, which instantly distracted Johnny. Evan was grateful. He wished the other him had been more circumspect about his plans for tonight, because there was no way Frank was going to let him take two days off without making him see a psychologist. Tanith would probably demand to see the ring as soon as she saw both of them again, which was going to be a problem.

Plus, what the hell had the other Evan done with the ring, anyway? Johnny would have found it in any corner or drawer. Evan just needed to figure out what other-Evan's strategy had been. He needed to think more like himself.

Johnny yawned. "I am kind of run down," he confessed, moving across the couch a little bit so he was almost, but not quite, touching Evan. "I don't know why I try to keep up with your practices. I can never make it through without feeling like I got hit by a bus. Ooh, look at that closet organization system. We should install one of those, the shelf heights are adjustable."

"Totally," Evan agreed. It did sound pretty cool. Speaking of closets, a sudden thought struck him. "Hey, do I have any clothes around here you think are hideous and wish I would get rid of?"

Johnny lit up with excitement. "Are you actually offering to get rid of those unspeakable Ed Hardy t-shirts? Because so help me, you will get the blow job of a _lifetime_ if you let me burn those."

 _Aha!_ Evan thought triumphantly. "Those are my shirts, man, you can't just destroy my collectors' items. I'll be right back," he said, standing up.

"They're disgusting," Johnny complained. "I can't believe I live with someone who uses Jon Gosselin as his fashion inspiration."

"Yeah, well..." Evan floundered for a rejoinder as he headed to the bedroom. "You dress kinda girly."

"All offers of sex are rescinded!" Johnny shouted after him.

Evan just shrugged. He knew himself pretty well, and he was fairly certain, once he located the right dresser drawer, that if he looked between the shirts that Johnny wouldn't touch for fear of contamination, there would be --

There totally was. A little black box just like in the commercials. Evan fished it out and stared at it for a long minute. The other him was really going to do this. He really, really wanted to spend the rest of his life with Johnny Weir. There had to be something there that Evan didn't understand, because he could barely imagine spending his life with, like, Kim Kardashian, let alone some high-strung dude who threw fits all the time and was always making fun of him. What the hell was the other him thinking?

But the funny thing was, he'd realized he didn't really mind this Johnny. When Johnny got snippy and pouty, he usually snapped out of it, and when Evan didn't have to think about competing against him, or worrying that Johnny would talk shit to the press, it was pretty funny stuff. Underneath all the flouncing and weird shit was an actual person, and Evan thought maybe he could even kind of like that person, if he had some time to get to know him. Johnny certainly seemed to like Evan, even though he was awkward and acting really strangely. Johnny didn't mind how much Evan practiced, or how much of his life was devoted to skating.

The sex was probably great, too, though Evan just couldn't decide if he wanted to find out or not.

No, that was a total lie. Evan desperately wanted to know what the sex was like. He just didn't want anyone touching his ass.

Evan wondered if he had big plans for the proposal; he'd asked for the day off and somehow persuaded Galina and Frank that it was necessary. That implied some kind of... _something_. He should check his phone and see if he'd made a reservation for dinner anywhere. He wouldn't have just wanted to hand Johnny a ring; Johnny was a high-drama kind of guy. And Evan had a pretty wide romantic streak, too. He'd never considered it seriously, but he'd always sort of thought his proposal would involve a beach and a sunset and a girl in a bikini. Johnny would probably wear a bikini if Evan asked him to. Wait, that was weird.

"Then what are you _doing_ with those shirts?" Johnny demanded from the doorway, and then he gasped. He full-on, hands-over-his-mouth, eyes-wide-as-saucers gasped.

Evan looked at the box in his hand and said, "Uh..."

"Oh my god," said Johnny. "Are you... is that..." He was doing a strange little flappy thing with one of his hands that made it look like he was having trouble breathing.

Well, shit, Evan had totally fucked this up. So much for dinner and the beach. He hoped the other him was having better luck being him than he was being this one. That circle of thoughts made him dizzy. But there was no time like the present, and Evan believed in going for the gold, and grabbing opportunities, and being all that he could be and giving 110 percent, and always bringing his A game, so he opened the box. There was a really nice silver ring inside. Evan had probably gotten someone else to help him pick it out. For some reason Evan's hand was shaking a little, even though he knew it wasn't really _his_ life he was about to change forever. "I was hoping..." he started. His voice was all strangled and he kind of wanted to lean against a wall for support.

"Oh my god," Johnny said again, and then he threw himself at Evan, arms around his neck. Evan was getting better at kissing Johnny, but this kiss was like Johnny was trying to devour him. It was more of an onslaught than a romantic gesture. Evan staggered backward against the wall, trying not to drop the ring while simultaneously trying not to drop Johnny. "Oh my god, you are so _stupid_ ," Johnny said, and then quickly, "and by stupid I mean wonderful. Is this why Stéphane came by?"

"Yeah," said Evan. "He was a little early."

Johnny was almost crying, holy shit. Evan hadn't expected that. "This is why you've been so weird today," Johnny said. "I totally get it now."

"Yes," Evan said. " _This_ is why I've been so weird today. Definitely. Also, you didn't say yes yet."

"You didn't ask yet," Johnny pointed out. He was really pretty, this close up. Evan wondered if his Johnny was this good looking.

"Oh," said Evan. He cleared his throat. "Uh, Johnny, will you marry me?"

Johnny frowned. "That's it?"

Evan started to panic. The other him would have had a parade or some hot-air balloon ride or a million doves or something planned, and he didn't, and Johnny was going to say no, and--

"Kidding, I'm kidding," Johnny said, and kissed him again. "Of course yes. _Of course_ I will."

Evan felt a huge weight lift off his chest. It was probably the worst proposal in the history of forever, but Johnny had said yes, and that was what mattered. Evan had screwed stuff up and then he had fixed it again. When he got home -- however he was going to do that -- he would have saved it for the other Evan. _Plus a million points, bro!_ Evan told himself.

"This is why you wanted to wait before, right?" Johnny asked. He kissed Evan's neck. "God, you're so stupid about being romantic, it's really endearing."

"Huh?" asked Evan.

Johnny kissed him again, slowly and hungrily. He was pressing Evan into the wall, hitching one of his legs up over Evan's hip, but he wasn't quite high enough to press their groins together, even when Evan put both his hands under Johnny's ass and pulled him up a little. "Bed," said Johnny huskily, dragging his teeth across Evan's jaw.

"But--" Evan started, and then his lizard brain, which was screaming _SEX, SEX, SEX_ , overruled all his other thoughts. Johnny bit him, and Evan just lifted Johnny off his feet and walked them both backwards so he could throw Johnny onto the bed.

"Come here," Johnny ordered. "Wait, put the ring somewhere safe. Now come here." Johnny held his arms up invitingly.

Evan put the ring on the bedside table and started to pull his pants off. He froze awkwardly, hands hovering over his waistband, because he knew how this worked with chicks, but was it honestly the same with dudes? Was it the same with Johnny? Was it--

"Jesus, let me," said Johnny, rolling up to his knees. He grabbed Evan's pants with both hands and yanked, pulling off his pants and underwear all at once. "Better." He waited for Evan to kick his pants off one leg and then grabbed Evan's arms with both hands, dragging him down onto the bed. Evan had never expected Johnny to be quite as strong as he was.

"You," said Evan. He was having trouble with sentences. "You... pants, too." Johnny was kneeling over him, which was okay, and he definitely approved of Johnny mouthing at his nipple like that. But there were all these layers of clothes between his dick and Johnny, and that just seemed wrong.

Johnny ran his hands up and down Evan's chest, dragging them a little bit lower every time. They brushed over Evan's tattoo and he shivered with his whole body. "You love that," Johnny smirked. "You vain bitch." He leaned down and ran his tongue over Evan's lightning bolt, necklace tickling Evan's thigh, and it was like... God, it was probably the best thing in his life ever ever _ever_ up until today.

Except for his medals. Medals trumped licking, but only just barely.

Johnny hummed against Evan's hipbone, and Evan couldn't stop himself from making a truly embarrassing noise. "God, stop, _stop_ ," Evan said. "I'm gonna... shit, I haven't done this in a long time, I'm gonna--"

"Right, last night was so long ago," Johnny snotted. "Wait a sec." He sat up and pulled his shirt off. Evan took a second to admire just how ripped Johnny was underneath all that girly shit he wore. Then he leaned down, pressing their naked chests together, and writhing a little bit. Evan was getting sparks behind his eyes, and they hadn't even started yet.

"Pants," Evan said again, but Johnny ignored him, mouthing and biting his way along Evan's neck because he knew exactly where Evan's weak spots were. Evan managed another growl and flipped them over, so he was pinning Johnny down with his whole body. "I said pants," Evan repeated.

Johnny's eyes were darker than usual. "Did you?" he asked lightly, and then gasped when Evan leaned down and deliberately bit down on his neck. Johnny wasn't fragile like the girls Evan had slept with. Evan could bite and push and hold and Johnny just grinned and pushed back. He wasn't letting Evan have anything, he strained up against Evan's hands so that Evan had to shift his weight forward to keep Johnny from rolling out from under him.

"Mine," growled Evan. He didn't even know where that had come from, but Johnny had a ring, damn it, he had committed to Evan. Even if it wasn't really this Evan. He leaned forward to balance himself and used one of his hands to start pulling at the snaps on Johnny's warm-up pants.

"That goes both ways," said Johnny darkly, bucking his hips up against Evan. Evan shuddered a little and shifted his hand to Johnny's hip, pushing him back down.

Evan had Johnny's pants off and spent a minute enjoying the view. He'd never thought much about admiring what another dude looked like. Johnny was skinny, but he was muscular, and his ass -- what Evan could see of it -- was incredible. "Better," said Evan. And then he realized he had no idea what to do next. He'd never had sex with a dude before. With a chick he had a pretty good idea of the order of events, but with a dude he wasn't sure. He settled for leaning over and kissing Johnny until Johnny stopped trying to push up against him and went boneless, moaning against Evan's mouth.

Evan's only frame of reference was felt good to _him_ , so he tried it on Johnny, sneaking one of his hands down between them, where his cock was rubbing against Johnny's. He told himself that it wasn't any weirder than jacking himself off when wrapped his hand around the base of Johnny's cock.

"Oh, _daddy_ ," Johnny groaned. Evan almost laughed, but he didn't have the extra breath.

"You dork," he said instead. Johnny closed his eyes, lashes dark against his pale skin. His cheeks were pink like they had been after skating, and his chest was starting to heave. Evan wanted to make him look like that all the time. His hand was a little dry so he let go to lick it.

"Let me," said Johnny, pulling on his arm. Evan's whole arm tingled. Johnny looked at him through his lashes and sucked one of Evan's fingers into his mouth. It was obscene, and Evan's brain was on the verge of shorting out. Johnny skimmed his teeth over the tip of Evan's finger and then let it pull out of his mouth with a long, loud, wet noise. Evan closed his eyes and took a couple of breaths, reminding himself not to come before they'd even done anything.

Evan leaned down and kissed Johnny, trying to breathe and hold him still while he concentrated on getting himself under control again. Johnny let him, but his hands were starting to roam, running up Evan's back and down his ass, brushing lightly around places that Evan had never let anyone touch him before. He tried to squirm away, but "away" was "forward," which meant rubbing up against Johnny's dick. It should have been weird, but mostly it was the best foreplay ever.

Johnny pushed Evan's hand back down, guiding him so that he was holding both of their dicks together loosely. Evan began running his hand up and down, enjoying the familiar feel of his own cock and the strange, heavy, velvety feel of Johnny's, and how every time they touched little sparks of lightning ran up and down his spine. Johnny arched his back, groaning and gasping. Evan had never slept with someone so vocal.

Evan told himself that his strategy was to get Johnny off first, because that was the gentlemanly thing to do. He started rocking back and forth, grateful for the strength that let him hold himself up over Johnny with one arm. He concentrated on watching Johnny's face as he moved his hand, and anytime Johnny reacted, he filed that away as ten points for himself. Johnny's face was so easy to read. Evan figured out almost immediately that he was moving too quickly and slowed down, watching Johnny go simultaneously pale and even more flushed. Johnny tipped his head back and made soft, helpless little noises, broken "ah ah ah" noises and breathy gasps. Evan's shoulder was starting to ache a little, but it was totally worth it.

Johnny pushed his heels against the bed and arched up against Evan and groaned, digging one hand into Evan's back, grabbing the blankets with the other and twisting them around his hand. He came all over Evan's hand and his stomach and it should have been freaky weird, but Evan was mostly grateful that he could bend his arm and collapse down on top of Johnny and just breathe for a minute.

"Ohhhh, my god," Johnny said. He pushed a little at Evan's shoulder. "You're squishing me, you big lump."

"Suck it," Evan mumbled against Johnny's shoulder. He was never moving again, not even for his dick, which was trying to let him know it wasn't done with the proceedings yet.

"I will, if you get off me," Johnny said. He sounded tired, but game. Evan groaned and flopped over onto his side. "You know I'd rather do this first, but I appreciate your thoughtfulness tonight." He pushed himself up with a noise like his joints ached and crawled on top of Evan. Evan totally appreciated the view of Johnny's ass.

And then Johnny's mouth was on his dick, and Evan couldn't appreciate anything else. His hips jerked up automatically and Johnny choked a little, pushing him back down with an annoyed noise. Evan had gotten blowjobs before, plenty of them, but rarely when he was so turned on and never from anyone whose mouth knew him as well as Johnny's did. Any hesitation he'd had about sex with dudes was obliterated by how fucking talented Johnny was with his tongue and the way he knew just the right pressure to suck with, and the feel of his hands on Evan's thighs, rubbing tiny circles against the crease of his leg. Evan made a _hugely_ embarrassing noise, and Johnny started humming, swirling his tongue around the head of Evan's cock. He didn't even have time to warn Johnny before he was coming, stars shooting behind his eyes and sparks running up and down his arms and legs.

He hadn't realized he was arching against Johnny until he relaxed and his ass went back down against the blankets. His legs were trembling a little and his chest ached. "I never," he gasped. "In my life."

"Engaged sex is the best sex," said Johnny smugly, and then flopped down next to Evan.

"I think that was the best sex I ever had," Evan said. His brain was still offline, fuzzy and blinking like an unprogrammed VCR.

Johnny snuggled up against his side, throwing one leg over Evan's and an arm across Evan's chest. His hair tickled Evan's nose. "Did you seriously get the day off just for this?" he asked. "Because in the four years we've been dating, you've never taken a personal day. I've learned to work around it, obviously, but this is pretty earth shattering."

"You're worth it," Evan said. He was a little surprised himself, but it wasn't like he could have skated after that.

"Love you," yawned Johnny. He poked Evan's side. "Give me the ring, I want to put it on."

Evan flailed out with one arm until he found the box and pulled it over. "Here."

Johnny opened he box and pulled out the ring, slipping it on his finger. "Shiny!" he enthused, holding his hand up for Evan to admire. "Isn't it perfect? It's _perfect_."

Evan was having trouble keeping his eyes open, honestly. "Glad you like it," he mumbled, kissing the top of Johnny's head. Johnny curled up against him with a contented noise, and Evan dozed off.

\--

Evan woke up aching all over and feeling muddled.

That, he decided, had been the weirdest, most vivid dream he'd ever had. He couldn't decide if he wanted to try to drift off, hopefully for more dreamtime sex, or if he needed to get up and take the world's coldest shower and forget all about his subconscious's apparent secret love of dick.

Then he opened his eyes and realized that he was still in Johnny's bedroom, and Johnny was sleeping on top of him like a bony human furnace, and his stomach sank.

If it wasn't a dream, and if going back to sleep didn't fix it, was he stuck here? Evan's stomach started flipping back and forth and he felt cold all over. Evan was abruptly desperately homesick. He wanted his own bed and his own training sessions and his own life, where he knew what was going on and what was coming next. How long could he fake being engaged to Johnny before he ruined it? What if he had to get married to him? What if he had to skate pairs with Tanith at the Olympics?

Johnny made a sleepy noise against his chest. It was dark out, but of course it hadn't even been dinner time when they'd accidentally gotten engaged and fallen asleep. It was probably the middle of the night. Evan's stomach protested skipping dinner after a long workout. He wondered if Johnny kept food around the house. Then he wondered if Johnny knew how to cook, because Evan pretty much lived on protein shakes and protein bars and take-out from the health food store.

Evan put his hand in Johnny's hair and played absently with the curls for a minute, trying to decide if he should sneak out from underneath him and scrounge for food, or wake him up and try to come up with some kind of celebratory meal. Frank would kill him if he ate too much, but he'd keel over in practice if he didn't eat anything.

"Feels nice," mumbled Johnny. He pushed up into Evan's hand like a cat being petted. "S'up?"

"We missed dinner," said Evan. His stomach growled and Johnny laughed, huffing a little against Evan's chest.

"Food and sex," Johnny said, yawning. "I'm marrying a caveman."

Evan bristled a little at that, but then Johnny rolled out of bed, ran a hand through his hair, and stretched, and holy shit, that was a nice view. Evan decided to let the comment go. "Aren't you hungry?" he asked instead.

Johnny glared over his shoulder, but it was a pouty, deliberate glare, like he knew Evan was actually looking at his ass. "I'll cook you something, relax," Johnny said. He put on his discarded track pants, which was a shame, in Evan's opinion. "Hey look, I have sixty-three text messages," Johnny said, picking up his phone. "Paris, Paris, Paris, Stéphane, Tanith, Paris, Paris, my mom, Jeremy, Paris, Zhenya..." He looked up incredulously. "Did you tell everyone we've ever met that you were proposing tonight?"

"Unfortunately," said Evan. He sat up, aching a little bit everywhere, but in a good way. "What are you going to cook?"

"Chicken and vegetables, what else are we allowed to eat before the Olympics? Honestly, I'm kind of surprised you didn't wait so we could celebrate in style."

Now that Johnny mentioned it, so was Evan. Maybe the other him had been impatient. He pulled his sweatpants on and followed Johnny out to the kitchen. Johnny opened the fridge, texting with one hand and pulling food out with the other. Evan was starving. "Can I help?" he asked.

Johnny glared at him. "Do you want burned dinner? Sit over there and don't bother me," he ordered, pointing.

Evan pulled a stool up to the counter and watched Johnny start doing things with the oven and chicken breast and spices. Johnny was humming to himself, Britney or Gaga or something super gay that Evan pretended not to recognize. The idea of living with someone who knew how to cook was actually really appealing, and he was starting to suspect how the other him had gotten sucked into this relationship. Good sex and good food, and -- okay, maybe Evan was a little bit caveman. But it would be sort of nice to have someone else around.

"Roasted peppers," said Johnny. Evan made a face. "Stop it, you love them the way I make them."

Evan was still feeling half-asleep and tired all over. "You know what I never thought about?" he asked. "I never thought about it being nice to have someone else around the apartment. I always really liked having my own space, you know?"

Johnny laughed. "Oh, I know. Do you think I forgot how you paid for a whole separate apartment in California for a year, even though you were only there twice?"

That did kind of sound like a thing Evan would do. "That was a while ago," he hazarded. Surely if he'd proposed he'd gotten his shit together since then.

"Which means you only freak out about sharing a lease once a month, instead of once a week," said Johnny, rolling his eyes affectionately. He put dinner in the stove. Evan wondered if the other him spent as much time admiring Johnny's ass when he leaned over, or if he was used to it. Was Evan's Johnny's ass this nice? Evan had never bothered to look. "It's okay, I don't mind anymore, now that I get how weird you are on the inside. People think I'm the uptight one, but that's just because they've never seen you the night before competition. You have to touch the lightswitch five times, you have to wear the same socks as last year, you have to eat the same breakfast as last year... it's cute."

Evan was momentarily surprised he'd let Johnny know how crazy he was before a competition, but then he realized he probably couldn't have hidden it for four years of dating. "We started dating around the Olympics?" Evan blurted, doing the math suddenly.

"At the Olympics, I like to say," Johnny smirked. "Don't think I forgot you trying to use your medal to pick me up. You're such an asshole. Nice shoulders, though." He leaned on the counter and ran a hand up Evan's bicep, and Evan's brain went momentarily off-line.

"The Olympic Village is a good time to meet people," he said. In his own reality he'd had some really good sex that week.

"Yeah, well, you basically stalked me all week after I turned you down cold," Johnny said. "So I think it's fair to call that sushi dinner our first date. Even if you used Tanith to get me there."

It was super awkward, getting Johnny to talk about something Evan should have been aware of. "Uh... no, I didn't," Evan tried.

Johnny rolled his eyes and put his hand on his hip, giving Evan the sassy pursed-lip look he'd perfected. "You had _her_ ask me to dinner and then you just _showed up_ 'by accident.' You're not still going to claim that was a coincidence."

"It was," Evan said. Yeah, that sounded like him. He tried to imagine himself hitting on Johnny instead of just wanting to slap him all through the last Olympics for his douchey Russia jacket. Evan wasn't great at asking people out, though, and using Tanith seemed like a really good plan. "You were charmed," Evan said. At least, things had gone better after that.

"You were like, the most awkward person I'd ever talked to in my entire life," Johnny said. He patted Evan's hand. "I say that with love, but seriously, when you're nervous? You're all elbows, like a big... like a bird or something. And you were still tanning yourself the color of a tangerine." Johnny shuddered dramatically.

It hadn't occurred to Evan, but he glanced at his hand. It was a bit paler than he was used to. "I live in California," he protested. "It's a natural tan."

"Are you naturally _orange_?" Johnny grimaced. "The first time you slept over you turned my silk sheets _colors_. It was gross. And your hair gel got all over my pillow. Ick. That's still a condition of you living here, don't think you're getting back to that just because I have a ring on my finger."

What a weird relationship they had. "You don't get to just make conditions," Evan said. He was a little offended on his other self's behalf.

"I've got my morning routine down to half an hour," Johnny said, as if it pained him. "And only three suitcases when we travel. And I took away Paris's key to the apartment, so he can't wander in when you're naked. What else do you _want_ from me?"

"But you get something out of... this," Evan said, waving his hand around vaguely. Obviously the other Evan got dinner and awesome sex and someone who didn't mind his nervous tics. "It's not just... you don't spend all your time just trying to make me happy, do you?"

Johnny quirked his mouth up into a smile. "You're sweet," he said. "It's nice of you to worry, but no, I've managed to keep my entire universe from revolving around Evan Lysacek's happiness." Evan flushed a little; he hadn't meant it like _that_. "It makes me feel a little better that sometimes you doubt that I love you, and I love this, and I want to be here. I'm a free bitch, baby. If I wanted to go, I'd go."

"But you don't," Evan said.

Johnny leaned over the counter and kissed him. "I don't," he agreed. "I was... I mean, I wasn't _lonely_ , before. Or if I was, I was dealing with it. I won medals, I skated, I got by. My family is so great, you know? But there's only so much... I mean, when I fall on the ice? Or when I fall in competition? I don't know how I'd get up without someone to come home to, who knows what it's like. My mom is great, she loves me so much, I know she's always in my corner. But it's never been her out there, with those judges and the cameras and the fans. You know what it's like to have your whole career resting on how well you do one jump, in one second of your life. You know what it feels like to win, and you know what it feels like to lose, and I just... I didn't even know how alone I felt until I had you. I should tell you that more often." He gave Evan that smile again, the shy one, the one Evan had never seen on his Johnny, back in his world.

"I didn't know you felt that way," Evan choked. "You always seemed so confident and loud and happy to be there."

"Well, you always seemed so confident and focused and driven," Johnny shrugged. "I didn't know you were lonely, either. See how well we worked out? It's funny, too, because I remember my mom meeting you and saying we'd either kill each other or get married, and I thought she was crazy." Johnny picked up his phone. "She's only texted me five times. 'How are you?' 'How is Evan?' "Having a good night?' 'Call me!!' 'ANYTHING GOING ON?'" Johnny started laughing. "She must have been going crazy all day, this is her _dream_. Stéphane said something about a party, didn't he? Were we going to make a big announcement?"

"My timing was a little off," Evan admitted. "It'll be tomorrow, pretend to be surprised, okay?"

Johnny held his hand out, admiring the ring. "I think I'm suitably distracted, so I won't ask too many questions. Athough, wait, where's _your_ ring?"

"Uh," said Evan. "I guess I figured you'd want to pick it out." That sounded reasonable. Then he tried to imagine what kind of engagement ring Johnny Weir would pick out, and winced. "Nothing that lights up or is covered in Swarovski diamonds, okay?"

Johnny pouted. "You're taking the fun out of this. What if I make it pink?"

"What if you don't?"

"It's going to look weird at the party, if I have a ring and you don't. We can go shopping tomorrow, maybe, I have a ton of ideas. I want it engraved, obviously. And I can't wait to tell people the incredibly romantic story of how we got engaged." Johnny switched to his fake lispy voice. "I was sitting on the couch and Evan was looking for a t-shirt, and I walked in on him holding a ring! Can you believe it? It should be a movie, I know."

Evan flushed a little. "You interrupted me," he said. "I had plans. Uh... dinner. And um, stuff."

Johnny smiled affectionately. "You probably kept a spreadsheet of all the different places I like to eat and assigned each one a point value, to determine where your best chance of success was," he said. "This was better."

Evan was a little ashamed of what a good idea that sounded like. "Maybe," he hedged, because if he found his laptop it was possible the other him had been doing exactly that.

"It's okay, I think it's cute." Johnny patted his hand and then turned to the stove to get the food. It smelled amazing. "Like, remember last Christmas, when you got me a white sweater because you said I was 23 percent more likely to wear a white sweater in January than any other color? You are the most thoughtful robot I've ever dated." He grinned a little to himself. "I mean, gotten engaged to. Oooh, I like the way that sounds. I'm gonna call my mom, okay? I can't go on living without talking to my mom." He put a plate full of delicious-looking food in front of Evan and then picked up his phone and hit speed dial. "Mama? It's Johnny, I-- He did! Isn't it wonderful?"

Evan ate dinner and pretended not to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to celebrate listening to Johnny say nice things about him. He'd never heard that back in his universe. He needed to figure out a way to get back there, but in the meantime he could enjoy this.

\--

It turned out talking to his mom didn't make Johnny less likely to want to have sex again. And it turned out Evan didn't actually mind Johnny's hands and mouth and tongue being near his ass if he was warned about it ahead of time. It also turned out that Johnny did know exactly where on Evan's inner thigh to bite, and that accidentally spanking Johnny made him moan and then laugh, and that sometimes Johnny insulted Evan just to get him to shove him against things, and that Evan really, _really_ liked sex when it involved being playful and competitive and open to doing just about anything, instead of just a way to get off.

"I really didn't expect today to turn out like this," Evan said, looking at the ceiling. "But it's been okay, you know? Better than expected."

"Uh huh," Johnny said. He ran his hand over Evan's chest, back and forth. His fingers were warm and the ring was cool and it was way too soon for Evan to be ready to have sex again, but the idea flickered through his brain anyway.

"No, I mean, you have no idea how much this wasn't in my plan for today," Evan said.

"Yeah," Johnny mumbled. "I had to beg and plead to get you here."

The image of Johnny begging and pleading caught up to Evan's hopeful thought about sex, and his dick twitched in spite of its current exhaustion. "No, I mean..." he said, and then stopped, because he couldn't tell Johnny that he didn't even like him, so he was pretty surprised at how much he liked being in love with him. "Did you think we'd end up here?" he asked.

"Never in a million years," Johnny said. He yawned. He'd been mostly asleep for the last half hour, and Evan felt bad for keeping him awake. He was just afraid if he went to sleep he might wake up here again, and that would mean he was stuck here forever. "Now, shhh. Galina's going to kill us both tomorrow."

Part of him was afraid if he went to sleep he'd wake up at home, too, but Evan shouted that voice down with a vengeance.

"Me, neither," said Evan a little sadly, and then he stopped talking because Johnny's breathing had evened out. Evan turned on his side so he could wrap his arms around Johnny and tried not to think about whether he wanted to leave, or to stay.

\---

Evan woke up and reached for Johnny.

He was alone in his bed.

His _own_ bed, the one in his own apartment in L.A., the one he'd been expecting to wake up in twice now. There was a tiny twinge of sadness, but mostly Evan sat up and pumped his fist with a triumphant, "Yes!" These were his sheets and those were his medals on the wall, and all his shit was right where he'd left it. Evan felt like he could run a marathon and still have the energy for a pre-Olympic practice session with Frank.

He bounded out of bed and then skidded to a stop, because his knees kind of ached in a weird way, and it occurred to Evan suddenly that someone else might have been living inside his body all day yesterday, and he could have done _anything_.

On the other hand, it was possible Evan had just taken drugs by accident and his entire previous day had been a very vivid hallucination. That sounded more right. Evan's head wasn't throbbing like he'd gotten drunk, but maybe LSD didn't leave you feeling woozy the next morning.

Evan touched all the furniture in his bedroom as he walked past it, like a ritual to make sure he was really back and he wasn't going away again. He took a quick shower and enjoyed how tan he was again, and then grabbed his keys, rejoicing in driving his own car and knowing where he was going.

He was especially glad to see Frank, even when Frank growled, "If you're going to skate like you did yesterday, why did you bother showing up? Give me ten laps and we're starting with triples."

Evan's stomach flip flopped a little bit at the crack about yesterday. So much for convincing himself it hadn't really happened. It _felt_ like it hadn't happened, but... well, some other him, the one who was dating Johnny, had tried to skate singles and hadn't lived up to Evan's normal technical skills because he was used to skating with Tanith. Of course, any Evan anywhere should have been driven and focused. Maybe that Evan was just distracted because he missed Johnny.

This Evan, though, was feeling strong and athletic and ready to fight. He knew his routines and he knew this ice and he loved how everything made sense. He liked that he wasn't trying to watch Tanith or Johnny while he skated, and he didn't have to be afraid the Cold War would break out across the rink. _You depend on yourself, man_ , Evan thought, getting ready for a jump. _You work for yourself, you skate for yourself, you keep yourself going. Fight, win!_

Evan hit all his jumps and skated over to Frank for a pep talk. Frank's pep talks tended to be more along the lines of do or die, with an emphasis on the threat of death, rather than actual motivation, but Evan was used to that.

Today was a little different. " _Now_ do you see why Johnny Weir isn't practicing with us?" Frank sneered.

Evan was taken aback. "Uh, because he's in New Jersey?"

"You seemed confused about it yesterday," said Frank. Evan grimaced. If the other Evan had been asking about Johnny, then everyone was going to think he'd lost his mind. "And Tanith! What kind of weirdo wants to skate with his ex?" Frank glared suspiciously at Evan.

"Yesterday was weird," said Evan lamely. "Sorry." At some point he was going to wonder what had happened, and why, but mostly he was trying not to think about it.

"We have the Olympics in a couple of weeks! We have no time for weird," said Frank, and sent Evan back out to practice.

He was distracted now, though. Was other-Evan back home with his Johnny? Would he be mad he'd missed the proposal? Had he been lonely all day on his own? Evan had never considered himself lonely except in the "being single" sense.

He wiped out on a quad axel and shooting pain flared through his hip. "Get up!" bawled Frank.

When the other Evan fell, Johnny probably skated by to make sure was okay, thought Evan resentfully. Well, or to make fun of him, but maybe that would have been okay. And Evan was absolutely sure Johnny's hands were good for massages on injured thighs. He got a little distracted by what else Johnny's hands were good for and tripped himself trying to do footwork.

"Oww," said Evan, a little plaintively. Frank was unmoved.

Evan did a morning and an afternoon session to make up for the day before, and then he headed home to escape from Frank muttering "Johnny freaking Weir" at him. The drive home was pleasingly devoid of maniacs trying to read and text and drive all at once, at least inside the car with Evan. And no one wanted him to talk about Brad and Jen or hummed terrible pop music at him.

It was great.

"This is great," Evan said to himself, blending a protein shake. He sprawled all over the couch and absolutely didn't think about wrestling with Johnny on his couch in Jersey. Or Johnny moaning. Or Johnny's ass.

It couldn't have been a dream; no dream had ever left Evan feeling so restless and distracted before. It had felt really, really real, and some parts of Evan's body were still caught up in it. He pushed the heel of his hand against his crotch and thought about Johnny's mouth, not on purpose or anything. Evan groaned a little. What had that day even meant? Evan didn't like dudes, and he couldn't stand Johnny fucking Weir. He clenched his teeth and rubbed his hand harder against his track pants and told himself he was being weird. He tried superimposing Nastia over Johnny in his memory, but he couldn't imagine Nastia laughing like that, pushing him off and teasing him in bed, calling him out on how much he loved having his tattoo licked.

Johnny's face kept flickering up, laughing, rolling his eyes, smiling wickedly at Evan and batting his girly fucking lashes.

Evan wasn't usually this horny, sitting around on the couch and getting off to a memory. A memory of something that might not have even been real, and which he was going to forget just as soon as he was done remembering how great the sex was.

His hand crept under the waistband of his pants, and Evan tried to pretend he wasn't thinking about Johnny sucking on his fingers. His dick didn't much care what he claimed; after a couple of rough strokes he was hunched over the couch, grunting and trying to remember what Johnny had done to get him off so fast.

Evan may or may not have been remembering Johnny moan, "Oh, daddy," when he came.

Almost immediately he was overwhelmed by embarrassment. How could he possibly have been this turned on by Johnny? Wrong wrong wrong. He picked up the phone and dialed Nastia's number, then decided he didn't want to freak her out and dialed Tanith instead.

"I changed your name in my phone to 'drunk asshole,'" said Tanith by way of a greeting.

"Hey," said Evan. He hesitated for a second, and decided it was easier not to try to really explain. "Do you ever have weird dreams?"

"I dreamed I was taking a French test on a waterslide," said Tanith. "I figure it's Olympic nerves."

"Oh," said Evan, nodding. "That makes sense."

"What makes sense?"

"I dreamed about -- nothing, never mind."

"Is this about yesterday?" Tanith asked. "Because I'm still not giving you Johnny's number."

Evan made a weird face involuntarily. "Shit. I called you yesterday?"

Tanith sighed a little. "Fine, pretend you don't remember. You wanted to know all about Johnny. His number, his address, if he's single. You asked me if I thought he was truly happy, Evan. It was a mess."

She was smirky, and yeah, it was embarrassing as hell, but Evan got how confused and worried the other him must have been. Johnny in this universe was single and kind of crazy. Evan thought about how the other Johnny had confessed to being lonely and his stomach twisted.

His Johnny was different, though, Evan decided. He was constantly, irritatingly flamboyant and energetic. He was always playing with the girl skaters or being silly at exhibitions. He was in fashion shows, for god's sake. He had a collection of fur hats, Evan was pretty sure. He wasn't sad, he was Johnny freaking Weir.

"Hello?" Tanith said.

"I'm, um.. I'm trying to keep an eye on my competition. Did I ask about Jeremy, too?" Evan floundered.

Tanith laughed. "You _so_ didn't. It sounded like you were more interested in getting _personal_ with Johnny."

She couldn't see him blushing through the phone. Evan reminded himself of that. "You're crazy," he scoffed.

"First time you call me in months and it's to ask if Johnny Weir is single?"

"I just had a really weird dream, is all," Evan protested.

There was a long silence. "It was a sex dream, wasn't it," said Tanith. "I knew it. I always _knew_ your 'rivalry' was bullshit. Are you finally having your big gay freakout? Poor Nastia."

"No!" Evan said, and then, "Wait, what? My big _what_?"

"You're the poster boy for repression," Tanith said. "And Johnny is everything you're not. Loud, outspoken, flamboyant. I knew you were a little obsessed with him, but this is hilarious. I mean, the problem is that he hates you, but you probably aren't worried about that. I should be recording this conversation."

"No!" squeaked Evan again.

"I bet you could talk him around. Well, maybe. Eventually. Flashing your medals at him won't work. Oh my god, I'd love you see you try that. _Please_ try that, Evan," Tanith said gleefully.

It had eventually worked for the other Evan. He rolled his eyes at her obvious enjoyment of his pain. "You're mean," he said. "And I don't want to date Johnny. I just want to know why he was in my dream."

"Sex dream!"

"Shut up. I mean, why _him_? Why not you? You would have made sense. We could have gotten married."

"Um, no, we really couldn't have," said Tanith, a little sadly. "Wait, in this dream, you and Johnny were _mar_ \--"

Evan interrupted her loudly, "I just didn't think I cared about that stuff. But maybe my brain is trying to send me a message."

"Good luck with that," muttered Tanith. "Anyway, I don't care what your brain wants, Johnny's my friend and I'm not going to let you mess with him."

Evan nodded, forgetting she couldn't see him. "Maybe he's just a thing from the dream, like your waterslide. Maybe I just want a real... I don't know, I'm so focused on the Olympics. Maybe my brain wishes I had a life, too."

"You couldn't figure that out when we were dating?" Tanith sighed.

"It never occurred to me before," confessed Evan. "I guess I must have been a pretty lousy boyfriend." He paused to see if she'd contradict him, but she didn't. Obviously Evan had a lot to add to his 'things to work on' list. "Do you think I could be better? Do you think I could have a house and a wedding and like... the whole thing?" He sounded wistful to himself.

"Maybe," Tanith said. "I never thought you wanted that. What if it interferes with practices and the Olympics?"

Evan thought about the other Johnny, telling him how much better it was having someone who knew the pain of competition to come home to. "Or it could help," Evan said.

"That must have been one hell of a dream," Tanith muttered. "Listen, maybe you shouldn't make any life-changing decisions until after Vancouver. Yesterday you were drinking, today you're dreaming about being gay with Johnny... You might want to talk to a professional."

"You're exaggerating," protested Evan.

"You told me you'll always love me as a friend but Johnny will always have your heart. You have become a really maudlin drunk, by the way."

Evan winced. The other him was a dork. "I guess I was really trashed," he said. "I don't even remember that."

"I intend to use it as blackmail forever."

"Yeah, fair enough," Evan said. "Sorry for bothering you."

"Whatever. Just please don't go telling Johnny you dreamed you two had sex, okay? He's close enough to a breakdown over Vancouver without your interference."

"He-- Is he?" Evan asked. That didn't sound true. Johnny was always saying snotty shit about Evan, badmouthing him as robotic to the press. He _seemed_ fine. The Johnny Evan had just spent the day with seemed fine, too.

"No," Tanith said quickly.

"Uh, okay." Evan was confused. "I'll see you in Vancouver, I guess." Tanith hung up.

Evan really hoped he hadn't left this kind of mess behind for the other Evan to deal with. Stéphane was probably giving him a similar speech about behaving like a lunatic right now. But other-Evan was back to his happy life, and Evan was just... back.

He stared at the phone in his hand for a few minutes. He couldn't be this hung up on Johnny after one day, obviously, so maybe he was hung up on the idea of having someone. Anyone at all. And his brain had been so panicked it had snapped and picked the person he liked least in the whole world.

Evan texted Nastia. _Come over again soon!! Miss you!!!!_ If she came over Evan could try being relationshippy with her. It might be great. He'd been thinking about it as just a way to fool around, but maybe Evan had had this weird experience to tell him it was time to grow up, to move on.

 _Aren't you busy?_ Nastia texted back. _You're always busy and it's almost the Olympics._

 _Come over anyway_ , Evan typed.

 _LOL_ , Nastia replied. _I'm out of town, but I'll see you next week. XOXO_

 _XXE_ , Evan typed back. Then he put his phone down and tried to figure out what he was going to do all week. Practice, obviously. Even more than usual. Frank would like that, and it would keep Evan busy.

\--

Practice had always been Evan's whole world, and it had always been pretty easy to turn his mind off and just work, but that was before his brain had decided to rebel. Evan would be working on triple lutz combination and bam! Out of nowhere his brain would remind him about Johnny cooking dinner. Or in the middle of a spin he'd think about how the other him had compromised on tanner and gel, and in return Johnny had compromised on luggage, and they'd signed a freaking lease together. That was insanity. It threw off Evan's balance.

Frank was unhappy pretty much all the time. "You're working but you aren't here," he'd bitch. It was true, so Evan just shrugged and tried to keep his head down.

His apartment seemed really empty. Evan deliberately left his sneakers all over the living room because there was no one around to bitch at him, and that was how he liked it. It wasn't as much fun as it should have been. Evan made protein shakes for dinner and tried not to think about anything except Vancouver.

Nastia came over a week later, excited about shopping in L.A. and seeing him, but not, Evan realized, especially interested in listening to him talk about things like mysterious plans the universe had for him. "Do you ever feel lonely?" Evan asked. "Being all alone while you're competing?"

"I can help with feeling lonely," Nastia said, and wrapped her hands in his collar, pulling him down for a kiss.

"Right, no, totally," Evan said uncomfortably. "But I mean... do you ever think about getting married? Or buying a house?"

Nastia froze. "You're kidding, right?"

"I don't mean right now," said Evan. He tried to smile and felt it slapped awkwardly across his face. "Someday. Like... a house and a husband. Maybe a dog?"

Nastia took a step back and patted his collar back down. "Whoa," she said. "I thought this was a booty call. You didn't say I was coming over for your mid-life crisis."

Evan was stung. "This isn't mid-life!" he protested. "I'm only twenty-four."

"It's athlete mid-life," said Nastia. "You have to decide if you're going to quit after this Olympics and stuff. I get it. I just... don't want to be part of it."

"I am not having a crisis!" Evan said. "Seriously, I'm just trying to figure out my life."

"Right," said Nastia, "that's what a mid-life crisis _is._ "

Evan floundered, trying to think of a reply to that. "Yeah... Well... I just thought I'd ask! Okay? Jeez."

Nastia squinted at him. "We can still have sex and all, as long as you promise it doesn't mean you think we're getting married. I'm game."

"Oh," said Evan. That wasn't very romantic. "Uh, okay." Nastia was even shorter than Johnny, and she had to do a lot of work to get up high enough to kiss him. Evan put his hands under her ass and hitched her up.

"Don't do your caveman thing," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I want to go out for dinner after this, and if you throw me around you'll mess up my hair."

"But it's fun," Evan protested.

"For you, maybe," Nastia said. Evan just barely managed not to pout.

They had sex -- carefully -- in the bedroom, and it wasn't bad or anything, though Evan wondered if maybe Nastia was planning her shopping trip while they did it. Sex with chicks was awesome, and Evan still liked boobs a lot. It just wasn't as much fun as Evan was suddenly aware sex could be. Maybe his day in the other world had been trying to tell him he was gay. Or at least bisexual.

They went out to dinner and it was perfectly nice. "We could make this serious," Evan said, biting his lip. "It wouldn't be so bad. You like me. I like you."

Nastia laughed. "No, but seriously, are you feeling okay?" she asked.

Evan slumped a little in his chair. "I'm fine," he muttered.

"You should think about dating someone who's at the same point in their life that you are," Nastia said thoughtfully. She'd ordered cheesecake just to torture him, Evan was pretty sure. It was his favorite and he wasn't allowed to have it before the Olympics. "Instead of trying to turn a hook up into a wedding, you could just buy a red Jag. Or find someone else who's done competing and wants to settle down."

Evan stared at her. "I'm not done! The Olympics are in a week!"

"Right," Nastia said. "And after that?"

"After that is Dancing with the Stars and Stars on Ice," said Evan.

Nastia sighed. "I know, but sweetie, at some point? You're going to realize that you have to do something else. And I think it's going to be really rough on you, because you're kind of crazy. I mean, the suicide workouts? The insane schedule?"

Evan muttered, "I don't suppose you find my work ethic kind of endearing?"

"I'm not marrying someone I don't see all day," Nastia said flatly. "And I'm not marrying _anyone_ right now. I don't know if you need to cover up a sex tape scandal, or make your mom happy, or what. But I'm not your girl." Evan crossed his arms and stared at his shoes. "We can still hook up whenever," Nastia said kindly. "But if you want someone to cook you dinner and cuddle with you at night, look somewhere else."

"What if the only person I know who might do that hates me?" Evan asked bleakly.

Nastia smiled sadly. "That sucks," she said. "Maybe you can persuade her you're a good guy. You _are_ a good guy, Evan."

Last time Evan had seen his version of Johnny had been at Nationals. He'd made fun of Johnny for not doing a quad -- even Jeremy had a quad -- and Johnny had yelled at him after the press conference and stormed off.

Evan's brain -- or the universe, or whatever was going on -- couldn't possibly want him to try to hit on Johnny. That was absurd. The universe wasn't that cruel and random. It had to be something else. The marriage thing, or the gay thing.

Evan kissed Nastia good night and went to pack for Vancouver. The other Johnny only had three suitcases. He wondered how many his had.

\--

Vancouver was full of energy. Evan was skating better than he had all year, but he had left-over energy somehow, making him unable to sleep or relax. Interviews made him restless. Practice left him more keyed up than ever. Evan decided to go to Tanith's room and see how she was doing.

When she answered, he decided it was better to deal with the whole thing like ripping off a band-aid. "I want to get married," he blurted. "Or my brain does. Or maybe my brain thinks I'm gay. Or I might be having like, psychotic daydreams or something."

"Hi," said Tanith calmly. "Wow."

"I know," Evan said miserably. "The good news is I'm still skating well, and that's most important. Can I come in?"

"Well..." Tanith hesitated, looking over her shoulder.

"C'mon," whined Evan, voice going high and California-heavy. "You said we would hang out in Vancouver."

She squinted at him. "Are you seriously claiming you're here to hang out with me?"

"Claiming?" Evan asked. "I... yes? What are you you talking about?"

Johnny Weir appeared behind Tanith's shoulder. "I'm pretending I didn't hear the gay part," he said. "You can thank me later."

Evan felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. "What's he doing here?" he asked numbly. His brain was freaking out, trying to get his mouth to yell, _We had sex!!!!_ He was frozen awkwardly with one hand on the doorjamb, trying not to fall over or shriek.

"Oh, please," said Tanith. "Everyone in the Village knows I'm rooming with Johnny."

"But he's a boy!" Evan protested.

"Nice of you to notice," snarked Johnny. "Oh, let him in, Tanith. Poor baby might cry, and you don't want him to start rusting up before the short program. I'll make myself scarce."

"You don't have to," Evan said. He felt like he was on autopilot, with no idea what he might say next. He'd expected some warning before he had to deal with Johnny again. He needed a script.

Johnny raised an eyebrow at Tanith, who shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "It's either a great idea or a terrible idea. For one of you, at least."

"Are you trying to psych me out?" Johnny asked suspiciously. "Because I have to tell you, that's a weak little bitchy move." He didn't sound anything like the other Johnny, Evan realized a little sadly. He was cold and haughty. Evan wished he could shrink himself a little.

"No," said Evan.

"Because you don't think you _need_ to?" Johnny asked, hands on his hips and narrowing his eyes. He was wearing warm-up clothes with a fur shrug over them. It was weird.

"Be nice," said Tanith. "You can come in, I guess." She moved so Evan could enter. The apartment was spotless, almost scarily so. Evan knew a few things about stress cleaning. He wondered if it was Tanith or Johnny or both who was freaking out. There was a Lady Gaga poster up, too. That had to be Johnny's.

"I don't want to interfere in your grand reunion," said Johnny, pronouncing _grand reunion_ like it was French. He was sort of terrifying pretentious. "I'll go."

"Don't be bitchy," said Tanith sharply.

"You should stay," Evan said. "We could... talk... about stuff."

Johnny looked at Tanith again. She shrugged. "I always thought you two could be friends, if you weren't so busy hating each other."

"Two days before the short program is no time to make new friends," Johnny snapped. He was glaring at Evan like Evan had come there to steal something from him.

Tanith sighed. "We can be friends, then," and pointed him toward the couch.

"Cool, thanks," Evan said, slumping as he sat. "I just thought maybe we could hang out. Bond, maybe."

"Has he snapped?" Johnny demanded, getting shrill as he turned to Tanith.

Tanith rolled her eyes. "Be nice, he's fragile."

" _He's_ fragile?" Johnny stomped his foot.

Tanith leaned over and whispered in his ear. Evan tried not to imagine what she might be saying about him.

"Well, I don't see why that should be _my_ problem," said Johnny, crossing his arms, but he kicked the door shut. "Do you want a snack? I need to eat." He bustled angrily around the suite's little kitchenette.

Tanith gestured at Evan, like _Leave it alone, don't push him right now_. She sat next to him on the couch. "Have any dreams lately?" Tanith asked, with a wicked little grin.

Evan turned red and looked quickly at Johnny, who had his back turned, thank god. "No," he mumbled. Mostly he'd been dreaming about skating, and Frank yelling, and sometimes Frank was his English teacher and he was naked in class and Mirai was there giggling with Yu-na, but _usually_ the skating thing.

Just once it had been Johnny in a naughty nurse outfit, but Evan was going to die before he confessed to that.

"Good," said Tanith. "I was a little worried about you."

"I'm okay," said Evan. "Just a little lost, I guess."

"You'd think, with your view, you wouldn't get lost," snotted Johnny. He had sliced up fruit and added granola and whole wheat crackers on a plate, which he slammed down on the coffee table. "It's not poisoned," he snapped, when Evan didn't move.

"Relax, princess, we appreciate you," Tanith said, rolling her eyes.

Johnny snorted and ate a grape. "This is the weirdest party I've ever been to."

Evan thought about the engagement party and Stéphane's amazing code words. "There are weirder," he said.

"Are you okay?" Johnny asked. "I don't get it. You're a medal favorite, and that's, like, literally all you want on Earth, besides maybe humiliating me."

"There's more to me than that," Evan protested. He tried to think of things. "I like... I... I'm fun!"

"You're fun like a math test," said Johnny. " _I'm_ fun."

"Maybe Johnny could teach you to be fun," said Tanith brightly.

Johnny glared daggers at her, and then turned to glare at Evan, like it was his idea. "Maybe," Evan agreed, trying to stare Johny down. Why wasn't _this_ Johnny ever nice?

"I don't have that kind of time," Johnny said meanly. "That would take years."

 _What if we dated for four years?_ Evan wondered. _Would you think I was fun then? Would you be less of a flaky bitch?_ "I am not actually a robot," said Evan aloud, grumpily.

"Could have fooled me."

It was weird, but arguing with Johnny like this, Evan felt almost the same tingle in his stomach he'd felt right before they kissed. It was the tension, crackling between them. Evan's body suddenly wasn't sure how to interpret it.

 _You're going to get married or kill each other_ , Evan remembered, and this time he understood it. Part of him wanted to punch the smirk right off Johnny's face. Part of him wanted to grab Johnny with both hands and kiss him. Actually, Evan realized, he wanted to punch Johnny and _then_ kiss him. It was a more complicated emotion than he was used to.

"Why are you _staring_ at me?" Johnny asked.

"My program got stuck in a loop," Evan said, trying to match Johnny's nasty tone.

"Okay, enough, break it up," Tanith ordered, looking from one to the other. "Play nice, please."

"I'm always nice," said Johnny, deadly sweet.

"You can be," Evan said, thinking about the other Johnny. "But you aren't to me."

Johnny's mouth dropped open a little bit. It wasn't an especially good look on him. "Why would I be nice to you? You're my competition! You're not nice to me!"

"But what if we..." Evan said, trailing off. He fidgeted a little bit. "What if we weren't each other's big rivals?"

"Like... if you broke your leg?" Johnny asked, sitting reluctantly on the couch beside him.

"No," huffed Evan. "What if one of us skated pairs?"

Tanith snorted.

"I'm just saying, _what if_ ," Evan said defensively. "If you weren't always skating directly against me, would we have been friends? We kind of liked each other when we were really young."

"I doubt it," Johnny said. Evan frowned. Johnny rubbed his hands against his thighs uncomfortably. "Why, do you think we'd be braiding each others' hair and having sleepovers?"

Evan worked really, really hard not to think about sleeping with Johnny. He kept his voice as blank as he possibly could. "Maybe. I mean. We both have the same experiences. We both work hard, we both know what it's like to stand out there, skating with all that pressure. We both know what it's like to lose miserably. We both know what it's like to win. We're both lonely. Honestly, who could understand you better than me?" He was proud of himself for remembering so much of what the other Johnny had said. He was a little surprised at how true it felt.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Tanith was staring at Evan, eyes huge. Johnny was staring, too, but he was somewhere between bewildered and hostile.

"Wow," Tanith managed finally. "Evan, that was almost... eloquent."

"I was just thinking about it, is all," Evan muttered. He was pretty sure eloquent was a good thing.

Johnny looked shaken, how strange was that? "We... we can _not_ be friends while the Olympics are going on," he said. "After that, I don't know. I guess we do... I guess we have some things in common." He added grudgingly, "You'll never be fabulous like I am, but I'll never be orange like you are, either. I guess it's _possible_."

"I bet--" Evan started happily.

Tanith elbowed him in the side. "Quit while you're ahead," she hissed.

Evan nodded and passed Johnny the fruit plate.

Tanith gnawed on a cracker. "So, how's the TV show going?"

"Oh, it's okay," Johnny said carelessly. "They can't film in the Village, but we're getting good footage otherwise. They were so glad I made the Olympics, we get to extend the run an episode."

Evan's stomach sank. What if this wasn't his right universe, either, and he hadn't even noticed? Johnny had a TV show? What?

"Sundance must love you," Tanith said. "You are so willing to show your ass on TV."

Johnny giggled. "Might as well, I won't have it forever."

Tanith rolled her eyes. "I saw one episode, and honey, isn't your mom like, 'Johnny, put your clothes back on'?"

"My mother understands me," sniffed Johnny. "But there was once when I was posing with Tara and I was pretty naked, and Patti kept trying to cover me up. It was hilarious."

"I'll look forward to seeing that," Tanith said.

"It's a nice ass," said Evan. His brain was running his mouth without his input again.

Johnny gave him an arch look that he recognized from the other Johnny. This was teasing. "Noticed, did you?" Johnny drawled.

Evan flushed a little. "It's not like you try to hide it."

"Why should I?" Johnny demanded, obviously expecting a fight.

Evan was back to wanting to punch-kiss him. "If you go shaking it all over, somebody just might be tempted to do something about it," he growled.

Johnny kind of froze.

"Uh," said Tanith.

"Are you _offering_?" Johnny demanded, going for sassy and missing by a mile.

Evan had competed against Johnny since they were both kids; he knew when he had an advantage and he knew how to push it. "Maybe," said Evan evenly.

Some of the memories of throwing Johnny onto the bed and making him pay for all those smart remarks was bleeding through his expression, because Johnny shivered. He was staring, mouth a little bit open, and Evan wanted to bite that pouty stupid lower lip. He clenched his finger in the cushions of the couch.

"You wish," said Johnny finally, half-heartedly.

"You can pretend you haven't thought about it all you want," Evan said, "but I noticed your ass, and you noticed my shoulders and my legs and my back." He was pretty confident that if the other Johnny had, this one would have, too. He tried to add _I know the noises you make when I shove you against a wall_ with just his stare.

Johnny was blushing. Holy shit, Johnny was _blushing_. "I have not!"

"Oh, you have," Tanith said. "Let me tell you, big hands, I know you're the one." She smiled cheerily at Evan, who grinned back.

"No, shut up, I did not," Johnny said, flustered. "Get away from me, you go sit over there." He pointed imperiously at the other end of the couch.

Evan had déjà vu so badly he felt dizzy. He scooched toward Tanith.

"I'm going to go practice," Johnny said, standing up. "You do whatever you want." He was still a little pink as he grabbed his bag and flounced out, slamming the door.

"Well," said Tanith, raising her eyebrows at Evan. She sounded admiring.

"What?" Evan asked.

"That must have been one _hell_ of a dream," said Tanith.

"You have no idea."

\--

Evan saw Johnny on the ice, warming up, but they didn't talk. Johnny was really, really focused, and so was Evan. He didn't have time to try to work out what the hell was wrong with Johnny Weir just then. Evan had Frank shouting at him and Plushenko staring him down. Joubert and Lambiel were chatting in French, but he tuned that out, too. Evan was focused on the podium.

Johnny missed a triple and skidded into the wall with a thump that made Evan wince. He hesitated for a second, but he was right there, so as he skated by Evan offered Johnny a hand up.

The glare he got probably singed his eyebrows off. Johnny pushed himself to his feet and almost knocked Evan over as he skated past. "Well, fine," muttered Evan, and went back to his own practice. Apparently there was no such thing as getting on Johnny's good side, ever. Or maybe this Johnny didn't have a good side. Maybe all the sexual tension in the world didn't matter, because Johnny was really a bitch. Evan went back to practicing quads and pretended he couldn't see Johnny at all.

"That was so interesting," said Stéphane later, when they were both in the locker room, changing.

"What was?" asked Evan. "Oh. That? That was just. That was nothing."

"I am intrigued by your nothing!" said Stéphane cheerfully. "I think it is quite an interesting nothing, and I have long wondered about this nothing, eh? Ha! Yes. Nothing indeed."

Stéphane was making Evan dizzy. "Right," said Evan. "I guess."

"Can I offer you the word of advice with this nothing?" asked Stéphane. Evan shrugged. Stéphane leaned in closer, waggling his eyebrows hilariously. "I think you will find with our fine feathered friend that honey gets you nowhere if the flies, they expect vinegar."

"I have no idea what that means," Evan said, pulling on his socks.

"It is simple," said Stéphane. "Johnny will never trust you if you are nice to him. That is very strange! He expects teasing and competition. You must give him what he expects and then show him it is _not_ what he expects!"

Evan was slowly, vaguely starting to work out what Stéphane meant. "That makes sense, in a backwards way," Evan admitted. "But who says I even want to bother? I thought maybe we... but I might be mistaken. I might be reading something in to nothing." His brain wasn't even pretending anymore that he might want someone else. He wanted _Johnny_.

"Johnny and I, we are are good friends," said Stéphane. "I assure you, it is not so dire as all that. He is just... he is a cactus. You must be a cautious deer. The eagle, he has not landed yet!"

Either Evan had déjà vu again, or all Stéphanes in all universes were a little bit crazy. He stared at Stéphane, who grinned back at him.

"He hates me," said Evan, a little plaintively.

"Yes," agreed Stéphane. "And yet also no. But you have hated him, isn't it true?"

Evan shrugged. "He's so _annoying_."

"The pot and the kettle," said Stéphane. He clapped Evan on the back. "Good luck, my friend!"

Evan wished he weren't so utterly transparent to everyone around him. "Thanks," he said. "I guess."

"You will need quite a lot of it," added Stéphane.

\--

Evan won the gold medal.

It was like his entire life had been leading up to this one moment, and he had it, and the world was a better place, a lighter place, and anything was possible and everything was wonderful, and he couldn't stop smiling like a lunatic. He could barely even figure out what people were saying to him when they congratulated him; his ears were so full of buzzing that all he could do was nod and smile and thank them and hope he made sense. He couldn't even hear his _own_ thoughts, he was so excited, he tingled everywhere and he couldn't stand still. He wanted to jump or scream or rip all his clothes off. He couldn't breathe because his heart was going to pound straight ouf of his chest from joy. Plushenko stormed off in a huff, but Jeremy hugged him, and Stéphane, and Brian. Even Johnny, so grudgingly that he didn't even pretend to smile. Evan was too high to care. It was the most perfect night of his life.

It wasn't until later, when Evan had gone to the rink to watch the girls skate and practice, that Mirai grinned and him and said, "What are you going to do with your life _now_ , gold-medal winner Evan Lysacek?"

"I--" Evan said, and then stopped, because he couldn't breathe.

Mirai waited a second and then giggled. "Dancing with the Stars," she prompted.

"Stars on Ice," Evan said, choking on every word.

"And a life of relaxation?" Mirai winked. "You're _soooo_ lucky."

Evan didn't want to freak out in front of her, so he said, "Go skate," and she pretended to pout, but she went out to warm up before Frank got really mad. And then Evan was alone enough to absolutely melt down.

His entire life so far had been about the medal, and now he had it, and so he was going to... what? Do commercials? Skate in exhibitions? Nothing he could think of was a _career_ , none of it was going to keep him busy 18 hours a day for the next four years. _You can win in Sochi, bro,_ , he reassured himself, but he knew that was a temporary fix. After Sochi, then what?

Evan's hands were shaking. He clenched the edge of his chair until his knuckles went white and his wrists ached.

It didn't matter if he hurt himself now, he'd already won. It didn't matter what he ate now, he'd already won. It didn't matter what he said to anyone now, he'd already won.

It also, he realized a little distantly, didn't matter who he fucked, or what he said about Johnny Weir, or if they still had any kind of rivalry at all.

Evan felt equal parts liberated and terrified. It was a heady, dizzying, nauseating feeling. He was either going to barf all over the rink or he was going to fly home. He fumbled his phone out and texted Tanith, _is johnny still here?_

She didn't text back right away, and Evan was terrified that Johnny had already left. He wasn't skating in the exhibition, so he'd left. Evan wasn't sure he could track down this Johnny based on where the other Johnny's apartment in New Jersey had been, and he hadn't even gotten Johnny's phone number.

Evan's phone beeped. _leaving tonight_ , Tanith had texted back. _maybe not a good time im not there_

He bolted out of the rink and across the Village, using all that adrenaline that had hit him like a freight train. Evan maybe banged a little too enthusiastically on Tanith's door, but he was in a _rush_ , and he felt like hitting things.

"What?" Johnny demanded, yanking the door open. He was wearing jean capris and a t-shirt, and he didn't look much like flashy Johnny Weir at all. There were bags under his eyes and his hair was a mess and he might not have even been wearing makeup. Evan's brain superimposed a big flashing _WRONG!!!! WRONG!!!! WRONG!!!!_ sign over Johnny's face.

"Hi," said Evan.

Johnny shoved the door shut again, but Evan already had his foot there. It hurt a little. Johnny muttered something angrily under his breath that might have been Russian and turned on his toe, stalking off back into the apartment. Evan followed. "Are you okay?" Evan asked.

"I'm fine," Johnny said. He was using that super high-pitched careless stereotypically gay voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Evan. "I'm super fine, thanks for asking."

Evan wasn't sure what to say. "You skated really well--" he started, but Johnny cut him off, rounding on him with a _vicious_ expression.

"Don't," he snapped. "Save it, okay. I know I skated well. I skated fucking _perfect_ and I'm being _punished_ , and it's my own fault. But I swear to god if you feel sorry for me I'll... I'll..." Johnny clenched his fist and held it up in entirely the wrong way to punch someone. "I'll knock your stupid white teeth down your stupid throat, Evan, I honestly will."

"I don't feel sorry for you," Evan objected.

"Why else would you be here?" Johnny was looking around for something to throw at him, Evan was pretty sure.

"I..." Evan flailed around for words. "I don't feel sorry for you, I'm just sorry that the judges fucked you like that. You skated really well."

" _I know that!_ " Johnny shouted. He picked up one of the cups off the counter and actually hurled it against the wall. It shattered, leaving a wet splotch on the wall and shards of glass on the carpet.

Evan bit his lip.

Johnny closed his eyes and took a couple of long breaths, shoulders going exaggeratedly up and down. "I am not talking to anyone right now. I didn't answer the phone for my _mother_ this morning. You are the last person in the whole world that I want to see." He opened his eyes and looked up at Evan, accidentally wielding the full power of his stupid eyelashes. "Go _away_."

"But I can help," Evan protested. It sounded stupid as soon as he'd said it, and he winced preemptively, knowing it was going to set Johnny off again. If Johnny had won and Evan had placed sixth Evan would probably have burned Johnny's house down or something. "No, I mean -- actually I'm freaking out, and I thought you... you might..."

" _Please_ tell me you didn't just bang the door down hoping _I'd_ help _you_ ," said Johnny tiredly. "Are you honestly that stupid?"

"Yes," Evan said. "I mean, no. Well, I did think you could maybe help, but only because... you're like me. Do you know what you're going to do next? I just fucking realized, what am I going to do next?"

"A shit ton of press where you flash your medal," said Johnny. "You can use it to pick up girls, it'll be great."

"But there are so many hours in a day to fill up," said Evan. "What am I gonna do?"

Johnny rolled his eyes. "I need to pack, and now I have to vaccuum so Tanith doesn't step on glass, and my flight leaves in like, five hours. Do you mind?"

Evan almost whispered, "I thought maybe we could help each other."

There was something really odd about the way Johnny was standing there, with his arms crossed and his chin up. _He's fragile_ , Tanith had said, and Evan had scoffed, because Johnny was lots of things, but not that. "How could you _possibly_ help me?" Johnny demanded. "You don't know anything about me, and you don't want to. You--"

Evan lunged forward and kissed him. It had worked before, after all. Johnny made a shocked noise, and his eyes got wider. He put his hands on Evan's shoulders and pushed him back a step.

"What the hell was _that_?" Johnny demanded.

"It was better before," Evan said, frowning.

"When, in your _head_?" Johnny snapped. "Have you been planning this? Is this your big gay post-Olympics freakout? After all those years of repression you can finally do whatever you want, right?"

"Yeah." Evan was still holding on to Johnny, and it was a little awkward, but he was worried if he let go Johnny was going to lock himself in his bedroom.

Johnny looked like he was going to yell, and then he sort of deflated again. "Well, good for you," he said tiredly. "Glad winning the medal made you feel more comfortable with yourself. But I'm not that easy." He shrugged out of Evan's hold.

Evan squinted confusedly at him. "I don't think you're easy," he said, although they _had_ had a lot of sex in a slightly different world.

"Obviously you think I'm just waiting around, hoping you'll end up gay so I can get my evil gay hands on you," said Johnny. He threw some shoes in a suitcase and then frowned and rearranged them neatly toe to heel.

"We should try that kiss again," said Evan stubbornly. "I'm pretty sure I did it wrong, because usually that works."

Johnny glared at him. "Has it occurred to you that I'm not actually a girl, and flashing your medal and kissing me won't make me melt?"

"It worked on you!" Evan protested, and then stopped, because that probably sounded insane.

"Not really," said Johnny. "Jesus, don't step there. There's glass in the carpet. Just... get out of my way, Evan. I need to pack and I need to clean. _God_ , do I need to clean. I need to be alone, okay? The only thing that is ever going to make me feel better is being blessedly all alone."

Evan felt a little like crying. None of this was going right. He was close, he could feel it, but this Johnny was a lot harder to get to than the other Johnny had been. "I still think--"

"Evan." Johnny just sounded exhausted. "You made your point. You're not evil, you don't hate me, you aren't being a smug dick. The last ten years have all been a big misunderstanding, and maybe in another ten years I'll be ready to talk to you like a human being. But right now, I need you to _go away_."

Evan stood there awkwardly for a minute, like maybe if he waited Johnny would change his mind. Johnny folded up a sweater and started a terribly neat pile on the couch. Then he went to the closet and started finding the parts for the vaccuum, as if Evan had already left.

"Okay, then," said Evan. It had been kind of a stupid idea anyway. This Johnny wasn't the other Johnny. This Johnny didn't really like him, and he didn't have any reason to. Evan had no right to be hung up on this Johnny. They'd never been friends or lovers, so he couldn't be upset about losing anything.

It still felt like his heart was being wrenched out of his chest, a little bit. "Well," said Evan. "Bye."

Johnny never even looked up.

\---

Evan was incredibly busy, which was the only reason he didn't freak out again. Well, he freaked out, but he expressed it by throwing himself in to Dancing with the Stars rehearsals, and going to as many celebrity parties as he could, and killing himself with his Stars on Ice choreography so that he wouldn't have a free second to think about it. Evan smiled and did interviews and goofed around with Anna, who seemed totally bemused by him, and tried to keep going until he was ready to drop so he wouldn't dream.

It was hard to even keep track of where he was -- except on Evan Lysacek Day -- and the touring bus might have been between any two cities in the country when some of the boys started doing an improvised fashion show walking up and down the aisle between the bunks, laughing at each other and making fun of each others' sparkly skating outfits.

"This is like, the worst episode of Be Good Johnny Weir ever!" Jeremy shouted.

Evan sat up so suddenly he almost hit his head on the bunk. "Of what?" he asked.

Tanith, who was on his bus most of the time, patted his leg. "You remember, Johnny has a TV show." She squinted at him, tilting her head. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm awesome," said Evan flatly. "Seriously, like a real TV show? About _Johnny_?"

"Maybe you shouldn't watch it," said Tanith cautiously. "He kind of... there's a lot of shit about you."

"It's hilarious," Jeremy said. "Holy shit, so funny. You're like, the Dark Lord of the Sith, basically."

Evan looked blankly at Tanith, who sighed. "You can download it on iTunes. I really don't think you want to, though. You two had a... um. Kind of a fight, right?"

"Did Johnny say that?" asked Evan.

Tanith shrugged. "He didn't say anything. He's like you. As soon as I try to talk to him about anything, everything's fine, everything's awesome, he couldn't be more excited to fly to Russia."

"I'm not excited to fly to Russia," Evan said, opening his laptop.

"You both hide in work and pretend to be happy," said Tanith. "I saw him when we were commentating at Worlds, he's okay. Just like you're okay."

"I'm great," said Evan, clicking through the iTunes store. What in hell was Johnny wearing? Were those, like, _ten inch heels_? Evan's idea of a naughty nurse outfit suddenly got a lot more specific.

Tanith looked a little annoyed. "Of course you are," she said. "Have I mentioned lately how much I love going pro? All this time to relax and tan? Have _you_ thought about--"

"Shut up!" Evan said. His heart was racing just listening to her talk about it.

Tanith slid out of his bunk. "See? You're both absolutely fine. Enjoy the show. You might want headphones. It gets a little silly."

Evan had lived with that dude. He'd slept with him. He'd proposed to him, for fuck's sake, although mostly they seemed to argue lately. He figured the show couldn't have that many surprises. "Sure, thanks," he said.

About thirty seconds in to the show Evan hit the pause button in absolute shock. Johnny couldn't really have said all that stuff in front of a camera, could he? In that voice? Evan looked around to make sure Tanith wasn't watching and then grabbed his headphones after all.

A couple of hours later, when everyone else on the bus was starting to head for bed, Evan had learned a lot of things.

1\. Paris was a dude. Kind of. Evan totally understood why the other him had insisted on Johnny taking Paris's keys away.

2\. Evan needed to get a foot massager. A good one.

3\. Johnny _was_ wearing that, and saying that, and naked like that. Nearly all the time. Evan was equal parts horrified and painfully turned on, which he couldn't do anything about on a crowded bus. He squirmed around a little, keeping his laptop positioned so no one would notice. He hoped the radiation wasn't killing all his sperm or whatever.

4\. Johnny really hated him. Or maybe not, it was hard to tell. He bitched about Evan a lot, but he never mentioned the other skaters, and in a weird sort of way Evan was flattered. He was starting to realize that dealing with Johnny meant turning his brain around backwards most of the time. When Johnny acted like he hated Evan way worse than anyone else, it ended up just sounding like he was obsessed with Evan.

Evan knew the feeling.

There were all these moments scattered through the show, when Johnny stopped looking at the cameras so much and was goofing around with Paris or his mom or Tara, and Evan saw flashes of the other Johnny. The one who was nice, and fun, and really cared about Evan and wanted him to be okay.

Evan's heart pounded a little bit every time he saw it. If that Johnny existed here, then Evan...

Well, Evan wasn't sure what to do about it.

The worst part, though, was when Johnny sighed for the camera and talked about being lonely. He was joking and laughing, but it was the same wistful tone he'd used when he was cooking dinner for Evan, and Evan knew that this Johnny didn't have anyone to go home to.

It wasn't Evan's problem, really it wasn't. This Johnny had basically told him to go fuck himself. They weren't friends, so it wasn't like Evan had an obligation to fix Johnny. Johnny didn't want fixing. Johnny didn't want Evan.

Evan closed his laptop and tried to figure out what to do. He didn't know what he was going to do with the next four years of his life, and he didn't know what he was going to do with all these... _feelings_. He didn't like them much -- they were too distracting. He tried to go to sleep but it wouldn't come. He wouldn't have minded waking up in a different universe, one where Johnny was a lot nicer. Evan wondered how the other Johnny and Evan had done in Vancouver. It didn't really matter, though, because even if Johnny had totally fucked up, the other Evan was going to be there for him.

He must have dozed off a little, because suddenly he was one hundred percent awake. Evan had been on the honor roll in high school, but he almost never got that feeling of a bolt-out-of-the-blue realization. Evan grabbed his phone and texted Tanith _!!!I seriously need Johnny's phone number for serious this time!!! I am not drunk!!!!!_

 _Are you sure?_ Tanith texted back, but then she sent Johnny's number. Actually, she sent all his contact info, including his address.

 _Thanks XXE_ , Evan sent.

 _Thought it was unlike Evan Lysacek to give up b4 the gold medal_ , Tanith replied.

\--

Being so busy meant Evan didn't have the option of just impulsively showing up at Johnny's house, and he was pretty sure he shouldn't anyway. He texted, _Hey it's Evan!!_ and then he had to learn the quickstep, so he didn't have time to worry Johnny would delete it without replying.

It took a day, but eventually Johnny replied, _what do you want_.

Evan cackled with glee. Anna shot him a _look_ , but he ignored it. He waited until he was home and out from under prying eyes before he replied, _you said after the olympics... ;) Or did you forget?_

It was three days before Johnny replied, while Evan was so busy flying back and forth between obligations and interviews that he almost forgot he was waiting. _were you serious about that?_

 _I'm up for it if you are_ , Evan texted. He didn't exactly mean it that way, but he was willing to bet Johnny would read it as inuendo.

"What is wrong with you?" Johnny demanded a week later. He'd cracked and actually _called_ , which Evan thought was a huge victory. "Tanith says you're sincere about this shit. You win, Evan, I am totally confused."

Tanith was the greatest ex-girlfriend in the history of the world, Evan decided. He owed her a lot. No wonder they'd made good pairs partners. "I'm waiting for you to teach me to be fun," Evan said. "I mean, I'm already _pretty_ fun, did you see my jive? You have your work cut out for you."

"I can't believe you went on television in pink socks," said Johnny, and Evan silently fist pumped because Johnny was _totally_ watching Dancing with the Stars, ha! "You can't pull off that kind of fashion."

"So fix me," Evan challenged.

There was a long pause. "Are you... are you offering to let me dress you? Honey, you are not _ready_ for that. Like, at all," said Johnny.

"Only if I can pick out your clothes," Evan said. Johnny spluttered a little bit on the other end of the phone. "Football jersey, baggy jeans, backwards hat..."

"I'd rather _die_ ," Johnny said. "Ugh. That's just gross."

"Now who's not ready?" Evan asked smugly.

Johnny groaned, "Fine, you win. In the game of Bad Fashion Chicken I'm blinking first. Eww."

"What's my prize?" Evan asked.

"I don't know. What do you want? Oh my god, I did not just ask you that."

Evan managed not to blurt out anything about what he and the other Johnny had been up to, but Johnny's tone was kind of a give away that he was expecting something along those lines. "We're both really busy," Evan said, working hard to sound California casual. "But maybe we could hang out."

There was another really long pause. If this didn't work Evan had about 900 other plans to wear Johnny down. Even in the other universe it had taken him a few dates to persuade Johnny it was worth going for, and over there they hadn't been fighting for years. Evan bit his lip and tapped his fingers anxiously against his thigh.

"You'll show up wearing an Ed Hardy t-shirt or something," said Johnny finally. "I'm not letting that in to my apartment."

Evan bit back a cackle of relief. "I promise I won't," he said. "I know how you feel about those."

"I'm still confused," Johnny said. "And I haven't decided if I hate you or not. If you bring that fucking medal with you, even as a joke--"

"I won't."

"Then I... I guess I... are you _sure_ you're not punking me? Stéphane and Zhenya aren't going to jump out and yell 'surprise'?"

"Nope," said Evan.

"We'll see, I guess. Fine. If we're ever both free. _Fine_."

It was the most grudging agreement Evan had ever gotten, except maybe when Plushenko had attempted to wish him congratulations a couple of days after the ceremony. It felt amazing. "Cool," said Evan, remembering not to call Johnny "dude." He was grinning at his phone like a doofus. "Awesome."

Johnny made an exasperated noise and hung up. This time Evan punched the air in victory and and yelled, "Yes!"

"Are you okay?" Anna asked.

"I'm great," Evan said. "Show me the footwork again."

\--

Johnny was in the same apartment complex, but a different, smaller apartment than Evan remembered. That made sense, since he was living alone. His car, which Evan also recognized, had some dents on the fender. Evan rolled his eyes.

Evan knocked on the door and waited. He wasn't nervous, he was jazzed, in the same way he got that extra boost of energy right before they danced in front of a live audience, or when Frank sent him out onto the ice.

There was a decent pause before Johnny opened the door. He was wearing jeans and a glittery black shirt with a really deep v-neck, and huge sunglasses. "I didn't actually think you were going to show up," he said. It was weird, not being able to see his eyes.

"Of course I did," said Evan. "I'm dependable."

"Right, but... whatever, come in. Do you want some water or something?" He waved a hand around and stalked away.

Evan shut the door carefully. The apartment looked a lot like the one the other Evan shared with his Johnny, except of course there was nothing of Evan's on the wall. Evan toed off his sneakers and then put them neatly by the door.

Johnny was watching him. "You don't have to do that."

"You don't like it when they're kicked all over."

Johnny pursed his lips but he didn't say anything. He might have been frowning behind the sunglasses. He offered Evan a glass and then crossed his arms, tapping his foot against the rug. Evan figured it was better to wait for Johnny to explode than trying to say something and getting shouted at. He put the glass down on the counter, making sure to find a coaster.

It was kind of funny; Evan could tell when Johnny just couldn't stand the silence anymore. "Why are you _here_?" he demanded. "I don't get it, I don't get _you_. Do you want something from me? Did you lose a bet?"

"I had a dream," said Evan. "Well. It wasn't a dream, exactly. And at first I was really freaked out, but when it was over, I missed it."

"You're on drugs," said Johnny flatly. "Does Tanith know?"

"See, I dreamed we were friends instead of rivals," Evan explained. "And it was really, really nice. It had never occurred to me how much we had in common until I spent all that time with you, and maybe it wasn't entirely real, but when I woke up I was lonely. I think we could be friends. I really think we could."

Johnny took his sunglasses off just so he could look incredulously at Evan. "You're on drugs and you're having a nervous breakdown."

"That's what Nastia thought, but no, I'm pretty sure I just... I got a message from the universe or something. Do you have any idea how great the sex we would have is? So great. _So_ great."

Johnny flushed a little. "It was a _sex dream_? You're reordering your life because you had a sex dream about me? I'm flattered, but--"

"We had sex," Evan agreed. "And we got engaged."

Johnny blinked at him. "I need to sit down," he said, and dropped onto the couch.

"I was more freaked out by the engagement part," Evan admitted. "I thought it would be the sex, but then the sex was really great so it stopped bothering me."

"I'm not sure I want to hear this," Johnny said.

Evan shrugged. "I'm not sure I want to sound like a crazy person, telling you about it, so we're even. Anyway, in the other world I was skating pairs, so we'd never been in competition, and we'd been dating for years. And you were really happy, and I was really happy."

"Anything can happen in a dream!" Johnny pointed out. "Last night I had a fucked up dream where Galina was at a strip club, and -- Never mind, ugh, I'm trying to purge my brain of that image."

"This wasn't a normal dream," Evan said. He sat down next to Johnny, leaving enough room for Johnny to move if he needed to. "And the point's not really what I dreamed about, which I don't think was even a dream anyway. The point is that..." Evan took a deep breath. _Go for the gold, bro_ he told himself. "Maybe we're too old, or we've been rivals for too long, or we're both too weird and annoying and high-strung for it to work here, but I think we could try. At the very least we could be friends. I _get_ you. I get the pressure you're under, I get how lost you feel after the Olympics, I get how lonely it is to work so hard and come home to an empty apartment, because I deal with all that stuff, too."

"I'm not lonely," Johnny said stiffly.

Evan shrugged and clasped his hands together in his lap. "I am," he said.

"You..." Johnny shook his head, bewildered. "You seem so _happy_."

"I'm happy a lot of the time. I'm lonely a lot of the time, too. I just started realizing that." He tried to sound sincere, but it probably came out pretty monotone. "If I can do something to be less lonely, why wouldn't I? In fact, why wouldn't _you_? You said the only way you'd feel better was to be alone, but I think the only way to feel better might be to have someone around who likes you whether you fall on your face or not. And no offense, but Paris and your mom don't count."

Johnny opened his mouth a couple of times but nothing came out. He cleared his throat. "I don't know how to deal with stuff any way _except_ on my own," he said.

"Me neither," Evan said cheerfully. "I'm saying, I _get_ you. Wouldn't it be cool to date someone who already knows how crazy you are and has dealt with it? I'm annoyed by you most of the time, but it's pretty much equal parts annoyance and wanting to take your pants off. And I know you feel like that about me, too. I'm calling it 'punch-kissing.' Like, I can't decide if I want to punch you, or kiss you, or both."

"I want to slap you all the time," Johnny said. "Wait, seriously, my pants? Aren't you mister straighter-than-flat-ironed-hair?"

"I may have let the Figure Skating Association exaggerate that a little," Evan admitted. "And it helped that I was always skating against you, and you were so... _you_."

"You've said some pretty nasty shit about me," Johnny pointed out.

Evan frowned. "And you've made a tv show out of hating on me."

"Oh my god, that's just _television_ ," Johnny said, but his cheeks were pinking up a little.

"I never thought about dudes," Evan said. "But then once I started to it wasn't bad or anything. Just different. And now the Olympics are over, and I can do pretty much anything I want to."

Johnny made a skeptical face. "So you're going to come out?"

"Nnnno," Evan said. "Probably not. Not right now. I still like boobs and all. I'm going to start by not being such a dick about that stuff in interviews, though, and see where it goes from there." _See if I have a reason to come out_ , he added to himself, but he was trying not to make Johnny panic.

Johnny was turned entirely to face him on the couch. "I just don't buy it at all," he said. "Hang on." He leaned forward and wrapped his fingers around the nape of Evan's neck, pulling him down so that they were face to face, mouths all but touching. Evan could feel Johnny's breath ghosting across his lips. He wanted so badly to grab Johnny with both hands and drag him down on to the couch, but this Johnny hadn't responded to that very well before.

Johnny's eyes were so big, and so green, and so full of really deep thought. Evan wanted to kiss him until his eyes went black and his cheeks flushed and he stopped thinking all together. "Are you going to do something?" Evan asked, voice deep and scratchy.

"I'm waiting for you to have a gay freak out," Johnny admitted. "I thought you'd flinch." He moved forward another millimeter, lips pressing dryly, cautiously against Evan's.

This time Evan had the advantage, because he knew what Johnny liked. He leaned forward a little, pressing Johnny gently into the cushions of the couch, one hand very cautiously moving to Johnny's side where he knew Johnny liked to be touched. The kiss was as gentle and slow as he could manage. The last thing he wanted was for Johnny to shove him away again when he _knew_ it could be good.

Johnny was stiff and almost frozen, but Evan was being patient. He coaxed Johnny's mouth open and ran his tongue over Johnny's lower lip, tilting his face to fit their mouths together better. He saw Johnny's eyes flutter shut, felt the moment when Johnny started kissing back. He knew he was right when he heard the first quiet, almost unwilling moan against his mouth. Johnny's hand tightened in Evan's hair and he pulled him further down, shifting his own chest up, pressing them together. This time it was Evan who kissed like he was drowning, because somehow he'd forgotten how much he liked this, liked Johnny's mouth, the way he tasted.

When Johnny pulled back he was a little breathless, wide-eyed and blinking at Evan, his carefully coiffed hair starting to fall across his forehead and his cheeks bright. "I was not expecting that," Johnny said, voice shaky.

"All those years of fighting, and you never thought we might be a little gay for each other?" Evan teased.

Johnny immediately relaxed, rolling his eyes. "I never thought you'd admit it!"

Stéphane was kind of a crazy genius, and Evan needed to remember to send him flowers or something. "This isn't my big gay freakout," said Evan. "Which, by the way, Tanith has apparently been expecting for years. This is my solution to the freak out. I'm doing something about it."

"Of course you are, you're Evan Lysacek," Johnny complained. "You always have to have a game plan, you always have to win."

"I like fighting with you," Evan admitted. "I like winning. But I like this better." He leaned forward and kissed Johnny's neck, pushing his necklace out of the way to run his tongue over the spot that made Johnny gasp and tip his head back.

"Stop it, you're making it really hard to think," Johnny said, but he didn't move, so Evan didn't, either. He kissed his way down Johnny's neck and across his shoulder, scraping his teeth across Johnny's collarbone lightly and then kissing the same spot.

"Good," said Evan. "The idea is for us to help each other relax, think less."

"You can't afford to think less," Johnny bitched. Evan bit him gently. "Oh _god_. Wait, wait, _wait_ ," Johnny said, and this time he scooched back a little on the couch. He was still holding on to one of Evan's arms, although he didn't seem to have noticed. "You are suspiciously good at that," Johnny accused.

"I told you, I've already done this with you," Evan said a little smugly.

Johnny scowled at him. "You're crazy and really annoying," he said. "What if I can't just jump in to this? How am I supposed to know if you're serious? Maybe you haven't realized you need to freak out. Maybe _I_ need to freak out."

It had taken the other version of them four years to work it out, and they'd started in a much better place. Evan shrugged. "Okay," he said. "I didn't actually think I'd come over here and everything would be cool between us immediately."

"Well, good," said Johnny, attempting to fix his hair. "Because it's not. I don't even know if I _like_ you." He tried to sound haughty, but Evan wasn't buying it.

Evan grinned at him. "How do you feel about finding out?"

"I..." Johnny hesitated, and Evan didn't miss the way his eyes flickered over Evan's mouth. "I guess we can see," he said finally, grudgingly.

"Cool," said Evan. Johnny didn't look entirely sold, but Evan was confident that eventually he'd realize it was better to have someone than to always be on your own. And that Evan was the best possible candidate for the position.

And Evan had an advantage. He smiled to himself while Johnny turned on the TV and pretend like they were going to watch it, even as he edged a little closer to Evan again. Evan was even gentlemanly enough to pretend not to notice that Johnny casually put a hand on Evan's thigh. Johnny didn't know how it was going to turn out, and Evan had already been there.  



End file.
